Courier-Mail: Cars lose the race to work

The Inner City Bypass is quickly turning into the inner-city car park after traffic grew by almost 25 per cent in the past year, according to a survey by Rivercity Motorway, builders of Brisbane’s North South Bypass Tunnel. The number of morning traffic delays jumped by 25 per cent last year in Brisbane, compared with 2005 - 10 times worse than Melbourne and on par with Sydney, but there are at least two groups of people who couldn’t care less - stockbrokers and cyclists.

The stockbrokers because the congestion is making shares in Rivercity Motorway look attractive and cyclists because they now boast they can beat a car to the CBD in peak hour from 8km out. Meanwhile, traffic on the Story Bridge and its approaches has fallen mainly because not even Brisbane’s unflappable motorists can tolerate the construction work for the tunnel.

Brisbane is in the throes of a cycling boom. “It’s the modern man’s golf,” a waiter at the Garage espresso bar at South Bank remarked on Friday as about 100 cyclists mingled outside before work. Park Rd, Milton, looks like a lycra convention on weekend mornings and Indooroopilly’s coffee houses are also enjoying a cyclist-led surge. So why drink coffee? Well, the pubs aren’t open at that time and you have to eat something after all the exercise, according to one cyclist. But don’t imagine these cyclists are a pack of latte sippers.

According to Bicycle Queensland’s Andrew Demack a nine-day ride his group recently did left several country pubs dry. But back to work - Mr Demack took 24 minutes to get from Salisbury to West End on his bike. Peter Whittle made it from Yeronga to the City in 25 minutes, the same time it took for Rhonda Clelland to ride from Wavell Heights via Wilston and Roma St. She used to ride to the Valley in 18 minutes and reckons a car trip takes 25 to 30 minutes.

Sharryn McConkey travelled from Windsor in 26 minutes and David Russell made it from Chelmer in 25 minutes. Mr Demack said his ride was probably about the same time it took to drive and said there had been huge growth in cycling in the past three years in Brisbane.

Mr Demack said the biggest change in cycling was how much people spent on a bike. Up to $8000 for a high-end bike was not unusual, but as Mr Whittle reasoned, he saved $30 a week on bus fares and never had to go to the gym which probably saved him more than $2000 a year. Further proof of cycling’s rise and rise - earlier this year 5762 cyclists took part in the Brisbane to Gold Coast Bicycle Challenge, significantly up on the 3800 last year.