Hasbeen,
I was down in Carlton the other day standing with a client beside her car talking and I guess we were standing with one foot in the bike lane, anyway a large bottomed woman on a bike blustered past then stopped and commenced to give us a serve for blocking her "right of way". My client just laughed at her and I called her a "Fascist", that did not go down well LOL.

Yikes! I've ridden down Coronation Drive once, and I can safely say that I'll never do it again. As has been the theme of many of Ludwig's posts, there are places where bikes just don't belong. It's unsafe - plain and simple. And there are plenty of other ways to get to the same places.

The riverside path is ostensibly a cycleway as well as a footpath, and it is a great facility for families ambling along slowly. It's dreadful for commuters or cyclists out for exercise. That's the trend around Brisbane - paint a bike on a footpath and call it a cycle path. The solution there is simple as well: find another route! It's not like Brisbane is a one road in, one road out town ...

Many cyclists would disagree with me, of course - and that's their right. But I would hazard a guess that I spend less time jeopardising my own life and annoying motorists than many other cyclists!

Otokonoko,
I have been to Brisbane quite a few times & my impression is that it is one of the most hopelessly designed cities in the so-called western world.

individual,

Brisbane was once a beautiful, overlarge country town. It was a kind place to live and raise a family.

The over-population resulting from the reckless, over-enthusiastic immigration policies of federal governments overwhelmed Brisbane's land planning, infrastructure and the capacity of Brisbane and Queensland taxpayers to fund the transport, power, hospitals and so on.

God knows what might happen to Brisbane and other cities if Canberra wins any more power and control over State affairs. Canberra is presently trying to wrest Councils away from States.

General Comment
Returning to cycleways, the Centennial Bikeway along Brisbane's Coronation Drive is no simple path painted aith a cycle logo. The Bikeway rivals sections of the Bruce Highway and is better and more expensive per kilometre than parts of Highway One. Its surface is better than many of the roads connecting country towns.

Thinking of use and equity, why should some cyclists need for speed come before improving the critical links for country areas?

What goes wrong on bikeways is what goes wrong where bikes mingle with traffic. Simply put, there are lycra-clad bullies who fantasise that they are competing in the Tour de France and have similar right of way and domination of the thoroughfares. They are in fact louts who so often have conflicts with louts in cars or on foot.

What has changed in Australian culture that we now need heaps of expensive road signage, specially coloured pavement surfaces and patrols to ensure some order, where once people happily went about their business of walking, jogging or running without the risk of affray? When and how did some road users turn into gladiators and serial nuisances? Why do they get away with it?

Even where separated from other path users, the road warrior cyclists clash with other cyclists.

The only practical answer is user pays: tollways for all new cycle path upgrades; and bike registration to ensure they pay tolls and are apprehended for their breaches of traffic laws.

Fortunately Otokonoko, I live a couple of kilometers up a quiet country road from a not very major country main road. With my knees this ensures I never become involved with any traffic, when bicycle mounted. Drivers around here are likely to encounter not only little kids on bikes, but also on skate boards, scooters, horses, or jogging with a dog, so slow & careful is in order.

Individual, what on earth ever gave you the impression that Brisbane was designed. That it was not is probably it's only redeeming feature. You will find absolutely charming leafy green enclaves, just a block removed from a horrible main road, all over the town.

Yes onthebeach, I think it's the lycra. Just as some motorists can be adversely affected by a rumbling V8 under their right foot, I think that particular fabric has much to answer for, in the way it turns meek minded accounts clerks into fire breathing idiots.

Looking back I shudder to think that at age 10 I rode a bike along a very narrow lane Cove Road, to North Ryde public school. I & my fellow school kids must have given motorists the horrors as we wobbled our way to school. It is a compliment to the Sydney Motorists of the early 50s that we survived.

Fortunately for their nerves & my survival we went bush after a year in what seemed so big, but was a very small city back then.

bottom line as a cyclist I would rather be careful and alive than arrogant and maimed or dead.