Taringa - Gailey Rd - Overgrown dangerous shrubs
Gailey Road is an important link running from the beginning of Sir Fred Schonell Drive up to the Taringa Fiveways roundabout where it meets the on-road bikeway on Swann Road. It carries a reasonable amount of cycle traffic despite the total lack of shoulders and narrowness.
There is a bad section at the beginning where the road narrows to a single lane each way. Just before this point the right hand lane is often used by traffic to turn into Heroes Avenue and can become quite congested as traffic waits to turn. This often causes traffic to move unpredictably into the left lane as they avoid the queuing traffic. This presents a risk for cyclists as the road is quite narrow and the kerbside is unusually 'humpy'. The problem is compounded at this squeeze point by an overgrown tree on the left which overhangs the already narrow road forcing cyclists to move right (see first picture on right).
Further up Gailey Rd there is no shoulder only uneven dirt and garden and the road narrows further. Here there is not just trees and bushes cramping the cyclist but rather nasty Agave type succulents growing with there threatening fronds/blades/lances extending onto the road. These are generally not a danger for cars but can cause serious injury for a cyclist. The section of road is not illuminated and these plants would be hard to see at night (see second picture right).
The day after Council contractors provided maintenance services on this section of road, which included whipper snippering the grass and other weeds it was noted that the trees and Agave succulent remained untouched. A subsequent call to Council verified that the contractors do not trim 'other plants' only grass. 'Other plants' are maintained by Council's Tree Maintenance crews and occur four times year. There is no guarantee as in this case that these hazards would be recognized by Council. A specific request to have them fixed, pointing out the danger to cyclists was made on 13 Jan 07. As of one month later, nothing had been maintained.
