Brisbane council spent thousands of dollars consulting over three possible bike routes in Brisbane’s north – before returning to a plan it kiboshed in 2018.
Brisbane council spent thousands of dollars consulting over three possible bike routes in Brisbane’s north – before returning to a plan it kiboshed in 2018.
By Felicity Caldwell
February 23, 2025 — 6.24pm
The city council has spent thousands of dollars on four rounds of community consultation for three different routes for bike lanes in Brisbane’s north – before returning to the plan it kiboshed in 2018.
A 500-metre gap in Wooloowin interrupts what would otherwise be 40 kilometres of safe, separated and protected bike and e-scooter paths linking the Brisbane CBD to Redcliffe.
Under an agreement signed in 2013, the Queensland government delivered stages one to four of the North Brisbane Bikeway, from Herston to Wooloowin, and the council is responsible for stage five.
However, amid a fierce campaign by opponents, the final link in the project has repeatedly stalled.
Brisbane City Council held two rounds of consultation, in 2021 and 2024, on a design for separated bike lanes north of Dickson Street from Price Street, joining lower speed “green streets” on Keith, Sydney and Jackson streets before connecting with the Kedron Brook Bikeway.
The stretch along Dickson Street is just 500 metres, and was supported by most submissions in a round of consultation in 2021.
But in January this year, the council dumped the Dickson Street plan following concerns from the community, including two petitions that argued businesses would be harmed by the loss of parking, and it would cause extra traffic congestion.
The council has now revived a plan for bike lanes to head west on Price Street to Kent Road, Rose Street, Park Road and Brook Street instead. This was the original route proposed in 2018, but rejected amid complaints about the loss of on-street car parks.
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It will seek funding from the state government to progress the Kent Road alignment.
The back-to-the-future move comes as a draft document shows the state government acknowledging the demand for better connected bikeways, but warning that a “constrained fiscal environment” limits their delivery.
The saga is frustrating for John Lister, an advocate for safe cycling whose wife Carolyn was killed in a truck’s blind spot outside the hospital where she worked in 2020.
Ten years earlier, she had been hit by a car on Dickson Street before protected bike lanes were installed on that stretch of the road by the state government.
“The driver turned left and Carolyn was in the bike lane, but an unprotected bike lane … and just bang over the bonnet, onto the road,” John Lister said of the 2010 crash.
He said Carolyn was not badly hurt, but the crash would never have happened if separated bike lanes had existed at the time.
Now, he said, children can ride to school in the protected bike lanes along that stretch of road. “It really makes a big difference.”
Brisbane North Bicycle User Group co-convenor Stephen Wisenthal said the stretch of Dickson Street without protected lanes was “pretty terrible” to ride along, wedged between parked cars on a narrow road and cars and trucks travelling at 60km/h.
“When there are cars going by, it’s hair-raising,” he said.
Some residents and business owners have fiercely opposed new bike lanes over the years, erecting “SAVE OUR STREETS” and “NO TO DICKSON ST DISASTER” signs on fences along Dickson Street.
Sydney Street resident Mal Peters said the Dickson Street plan would mean the loss of car parking spots for commuters who used the Wooloowin and Eagle Junction train stations.
He believed there had not been enough community engagement when selecting a route.
“I have some sympathy for the cyclists in that they do need some connections, and they need it to be safe, but they shouldn’t be on major arterial roads,” he said.
Peters said the Kent Road alignment would connect Kedron State High School and encourage more children to ride bikes.
Brisbane Times also spoke to others who opposed the Dickson Street route, but who did not want to be quoted.
Cycling groups supported an upgrade of the Kent Road route, but warned it would create a winding detour for cyclists heading north to Eagle Junction train station, the Brisbane Airport, the Gateway North Bikeway and Moreton Bay Cycleway.
They believed the Dickson St route should be prioritised as the direction most riders wanted to travel.
No construction has yet begun. The council would not confirm how much had been spent on consultation, but its budget showed more than $1.6 million was allocated for the bikeway between 2014 and 2017.
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Hamilton Councillor Julia Dixon said council wanted to deliver better bikeways in the suburbs “but this has been a complex matter with varying opinions”.
“I have listened to residents and am supportive, along with the majority of residents, of Kent Road as the preferred alignment for the missing bikeway link,” she said.
Members of Brisbane North BUG are planning a public ride along both routes next month to push for safe connections “before another decade passes”.
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