Fortitude Valley - James St

From Bikeqld

James Street in Fortitude Valley is a busy pedestrian precinct with the urban renewal of the once light industrial suburb. There are numerous retail and dining outlets as well as galleries and a thriving cinema in the vicinity. The BCC has made some minor efforts to traffic calm this street with the installation of narrowing zones with street plantings and speed tables at one section. There are designated Bicycle Awareness Zones (BAZ) on this street. The speed limit however is still designated as 50 kph despite all of this on street activity.

The series of pictures below show the traffic calming measures in place but also show that the use of the Yellow Bike BAZ symbols have been compromised by placing them too far to the left and in the place of parked cars. A cyclist would normally ride about 1m to 1.2m out from the parked car 'door line'. The sign totally obscured from view of motorists by the street planting in the first picture on the left is actually a 60 kph speed sign. Its presence and invisibility has been raised with Council with a suggestion of at least a visible 50 kph sign here to reinforce the reduced limit. There has been no response as of Dec 07.

Obscured 60kph speed sign

Official 50 kph speed sign

Traffic calming measures

Poor placement of BAZ marking