Sudden closure of iconic bridge to cyclists shows ‘car is still king in Brisbane'

The Guardian

13-04-2025

Four days a week Casey Gardiner rides an e-bike from Brisbane's northern suburbs to her workplace on its southside. On permanent night shift, the thirtysomething health worker pedals home beneath the steel trusses of the Story Bridge as it twinkles with coloured lights in the gloom of those 'wee hours'.
Or she did, at least, until 5.30pm on 5 March, when the footpaths on either side of that iconic structure were closed – and her commute abruptly and indefinitely severed.
At first Brisbane city council said it had shut the footpaths while ex-Tropical Cyclone Alfred lurked offshore and meteorologists forecast it would track right through the Queensland capital.
Then Alfred weakened to a low pressure system – crossing the mainland on the evening of 8 March – and Brisbane's mayor, Adrian Schrinner, declared his city had 'dodged a bullet'. The cleanup began and the city hummed back into familiar routines as infrastructure and services reopened. Yet the Story Bridge footpaths remained closed.
Schrinner has since said the closures are needed to assess storm damage and to build the case for a major bridge restoration. More than a month later, at the time of writing, they remain shut without a date of reopening and the council is encouraging pedestrians, cyclists and scooter riders to 'consider' using another bridge more than 2km away by bike.
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But the alternative river crossing would take Gardiner through the streets of the CBD at an hour in which she does not feel safe to ride her bike and public transport not an option. So, since March, she has driven to work.
Kathryn Good's home in St Lucia is the same side of the river as the New Farm markets at which she and her partner buy groceries. But with a section of the riverwalk in the CBD closed until at least early next year due to the construction of a multibillion dollar private development, Waterfront Brisbane, the pair avoid the city streets by crossing the river at Kangaroo Point's green bridge upriver and recrossing the Story Bridge.
Or they did, until March, when its closure forced them through the CBD. A Saint Patrick's Day parade was in full swing that Saturday and the detour added 40 minutes to their ride. Good, 26 years old and an intrepid and enthusiastic rider, has not bothered to go to New Farm since.
Gardiner and Good are just two among thousands of pedestrians, bike and scooter riders who have seen their commutes and travels disrupted or abandoned by the bridge footpath closure which cycling advocates say is a prime example of the faults plaguing the city's active transport infrastructure. Infrastructure, they say, which can go from almost world class – in its few best parts – to just about unusable for many riders when disrupted by development or natural disaster.
Brisbane CBD Bicycle User Group's Paul French is among those calling for one of the six lanes on the Story Bridge to be temporarily closed to traffic and used instead for active travel. But French is not holding his breath. He says the handling of the Story Bridge footpath closures demonstrates how bike riding is 'not taken seriously as a form of transport' by policymakers.
'Mate, the car is still king in Brisbane,' he says.
'Bike riding is largely viewed as a recreational activity – I think that's the principal philosophy here.'
French says many riders only learned of the closure when faced with a locked gate and a sign which directed bike and foot traffic to cross on the other side – only to find this, too, was closed. Later, corflute maps directed commuters to a new Kangaroo Point bike and pedestrian bridge – but the river walk there is also closed due to the Waterfront Brisbane build. Those maps were taken down.
French himself found out about the Story Bridge closure indirectly, through the social media posts of 'cheesed off' bike riders. Information from the Brisbane city council, which manages the bridge, was, he says, scant and 'coy'.
Nearly a fortnight after it was shut, on 18 March, Schrinner was fronting media saying council had 'used the opportunity' of the closures to do 'technical assessments on various parts of the bridge' – beginning with the footpaths – to develop its business case for 'a major bridge' restoration plan.
He did not answer questions as to why both footpaths were closed simultaneously.
The Guardian sought an interview with Schrinner, or anyone from council who could explain the situation. The response was a statement on Tuesday attributed to the mayor that recognised the inconvenience of the closure made necessary for public safety works which would 'continue for the next couple of weeks'.
Bicycle Queensland's advocacy director, Andrew Demack, says that while it is 'super disappointing' that many like Gardiner and Good are being forced to abandon their rides due to bridge's footpath closure – it also highlights just how much better the city's riding infrastructure has become in recent years.
A commute like Gardiner's might not have been possible before the construction of the Northern and Bicentennial bikeways – majorly extended and upgraded in 2021 and 2015 respectively. The Kangaroo Point Bridge opened late last year.
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Yes, there are often gaps between 'brilliant bits' of infrastructure – sections of busy and unprotected roads that prevent many from riding. But, Demack says, Brisbane has the 'bones of a really good network'.
'I think the key problem is that it lacks resilience,' he says. 'So anytime any major section is closed, and it can happen for all sorts of reasons, the bikeway network kind of falls apart.'
Demack says the same issues dogged riders coming from the northern suburbs for about five years during the construction of the Clem Jones and Airport Link tunnels. Construction detours for cyclists, he says, were narrow, hard to manage, had more hills and added significantly to riding times. So many simply stopped riding from the northern suburbs to the CBD.
Of course, he says, cyclists understand the city needs to build and fix things. But they want clear communication, urgency of work and safe alternative passage.
'All we are asking for is parity with how motorists are treated,' he says.
And, in the state's peak motoring body, Demack and other cyclists have found an unlikely ally.
Like several of his colleagues at the Royal Automobile Club of Queensland, Dr Michael Kane often commutes on his bicycle.
'It's quicker for me to take public transport or ride to work in the morning,' he says.
Kane, the RACQ's public policy head, released a report this month into slowing traffic speeds in south-east Queensland that was billed an 'urgent call' to halt 'a grim trend' towards increasing congestion.
It called for a long-term south-east Queensland transport plan to achieve two key objectives – the first of which was to improve public and active transport networks.
For Kane, however, the onus of making that plan reality will fall largely on the next federal government. The city and state governments have done some 'very good planning work' in Brisbane, he says.
'What we don't have is the serious funding to get on with it,' Kane says. 'We've never seriously, as a country, looked at the opportunity to use cycling infrastructure to address congestion in a coherent way.'
But ultimately, he says, cycling infrastructure is 'among the cheapest infrastructure you can spend to actually address congestion'.
'Improving bike infrastructure is of benefit to 100% of people,' he says. 'Everyone benefits.'