No time to hesitate over electric bikes
The electric bike scourge continues to plague the neighbourhood while the state government dithers over its response.
Waterfront Park at Newstead has now become popular as a gathering point for groups of young and not-so-young riders of electric bikes. How can you tell if a bike is capable of illegal speeds and has had its power output boosted? You can’t.
The emergency room doctors treating the ever-increasing number of bike-related injuries, some life altering, have called repeatedly for some form of compulsory registration and enforcement.
Sadly it seems that it will require a tragedy to occur before meaningful action is taken.
Powerhouse putts
Feeling your age? Brisbane Powerhouse at New Farm has introduced a mini-golf experience available until March 1.
If like me you can recall playing mini-golf in the main street at Coolangatta and watching Ron Rico the hypnotist entertain crowds at the Greenmount beach pavilion, have a cup of tea and a nice lie down. It’s later than you think.
Commuter’s obstacle course
If mini-golf is not your thing, how about car sitting? This is the latest hobby to sweep the district and anyone can play. All you need to do is attempt to drive from A to B around Teneriffe-Newstead-New Farm and you will be held up by someone holding a STOP sign whereupon you will sit in your car at the pleasure of whoever is in charge.
Stop the traffic in James Street causing chaos on a Friday afternoon? Shut down footpaths for months or in some cases years? No worries. Suck it up, ratepayers. We’re developers and we do what we want when we want.
The next South Bank?
The forthcoming closure of the Parmalat industrial site on the riverfront at South Brisbane between the Merivale Street railway bridge and the William Jolly Bridge creates the perfect opportunity to gift the community riverside parkland and take some of the pressure off New Farm Park which is in danger of being loved to death.
How lovely it would be to have another inner-city park to offset the massive concrete apartment towers that are planned for the nearby former Visy site at South Brisbane.
Deputy Premier Jarrod Bleijie is incapable of uttering a sentence that does not include the words “Olympics” and “legacy” so what could be a more fitting legacy for the people of Brisbane who will lose a large slab of Victoria Park to the “Olympic legacy” than to present them with a riverfront park, one which could also be enjoyed by international and Olympic visitors alike?
It won’t happen, of course, with the Brisbane City Council salivating at the thought of the money it can make from approving the construction of more concrete towers on the site.
“With more than 600 people choosing to move to Brisbane every week, sites like this help us meet demand,” gushed Lord Mayor Schrinner.
Who in the council is counting them and how? Was it 543 last week and 603 the week before? Do we subtract the ones that leave and if the council counter loses count, do they have to start again and where do they find them to count them? At the border or airport? Do some of them sneak in at night and escape the count and how do we know they all want to live in a high-rise apartment at South Brisbane?
Just asking for a friend.
