About a year ago I bought an electric bike and reignited my passion for riding. With a dodgy knee, and living in a hot, humid climate, the idea of riding over Noosa Hill to Main Beach or even just around the hilly Sunshine Beach area seemed a good enough reason to opt for the car instead – but now I have no excuse.
Having a pedal-assisted bike allows me to use it on my daily commutes and I don’t need to don lycra or have a shower when I get to my destination. With a good sized basket, I can also carry a fair swag of groceries in one go.
Wherever possible I steer clear of main roads and take back streets around the suburbs. But it’s boom time on the Sunshine Coast and lately our suburb has seen a huge growth of new buildings and renovations, which mean more vehicles on our roads and less pleasant cycling.
But once I get to the dedicated pedestrian and bike paths, I can fly along.
A major hurdle to getting more people – especially students – cycling are some missing links in the bike ways that, if removed, would allow parents to feel confident their kids are safe on their bikes.
In my mind I’ve started to connect the dots – thinking of ways we could fix these missing links.
Imagine a bikeway along the firebreak from the bridge that links Castaways with Sunrise Beach all the way to Sunshine Beach State High… If kids from the southern end of the school catchment could walk or ride on a dedicated path separate from busy roads, parents would encourage their kids to ride. Who wants to sit in traffic in mum & dad’s taxi when instead you know your kids can be enjoying beautiful scenery and getting healthy riding to and from school?
With construction on the Blue Care development next to the High School scheduled to start early next year (and, in its various stages, will be many years in the making), I am hoping that Noosa Council will see sense in providing safer access for students to ride to school. Students from other schools and the Lexis English college would also benefit.
Another hot spot is around St Theresa’s and Noosaville State School, where the long-awaited Beckmans Road duplication keeps rearing its head and then ducking for cover again.
With most of the traffic issues being around school drop-off and pick-up times, it seems clear as daylight that safe pedestrian and bike access is an issue that needs to be addressed. Taking cars off the road will ease the Beckman bottleneck.
The housing estates in that precinct have seen steady growth over the years with more and more families moving in, but the vital infrastructure to keep our families safe – and healthy – is severely lacking.
Noosa Council has engaged consultants to devise a behaviour change strategy to entice students to ride to school – but what if there is no safe way to get there? Fix the links and behaviour change will follow. It doesn’t always happen but, in this case, build it and they will come!
Let us know through the Comments link below where your local biking and walking gaps are and the dodgy spots that prevent you from letting your kids ride safely to school.
This is very sad news.
I’ve recently started cycling and I refuse to ride on the roads because 1. it’s unpleasant and 2. it’s not safe. I find Queensland drivers to be aggressive, impatient and many seem to have a dislike for cyclists. Even though cyclists have exactly the same rights on roads as cars, I’m not prepared to get into endless arguments and scraps around these points, it’s easier to just stay off the roads. On one of my first days out on the bike, I was almost taken out twice by the same bus driver in a space of 10 minutes.
What I have found to my surprise and delight, is that Noosa has some excellent bike pathways – not the green painted ones on the road that may end at any second and throw you into general traffic, but dedicated off road ones. Somebody at some point spent a long time thinking about bike pathways and in my view council have done a pretty good job in providing these. For example, I can get from my house in Tewantin (around outlook drive) all the way to Moto in Noosa Heads without going on a single road. The worst bit of that ride is crossing the big circle at Bunnings over to the Giant bikes side, but after that it’s a breeze. That journey has 2 bike tunnels that go under busy main roads – how good is that? I can also get from my house to the beach 80% road free – only have to get onto the road at Noosa Parade (perhaps because developers would not concede any more saleable land?). I can also get from my house to SBSH without going on the road.
A big round of applause for council for doing a good job in trying to provide these off road bikeways and totally agree that they should be extended and improved so that more people can enjoy cycling without having to worry about cars and drivers.
Council and others can say what they like about trying to get more people onto scooters and bikes, but until 4 wheel drivers and 2 wheel riders can co-exist on roads in a mutually respectful way, this is just going to be talk because people recognise that it’s not safe out there on the roads. A few years ago I road past a person laying flat on the ground covered by a sheet near the civic. Turns out a scooter and a bus collided and the scooter rider lost their life. I drove past another person laying in the middle of the road last week – another scooter rider, but luckily this time the person was ok. And now we have this incident with another person dying on a bicycle.
I’m all for more cycling, but the only way I and my family are prepared to do it is off the roads. Please continue your excellent work on the off road bike ways Noosa Council. It’s the only way to ensure riders are safe.
Of course we can’t have scooters on bike ways, so scooter and motorcycle riders will either need to take their chances on the roads, or perhaps consider switching to a bicycle if the pathways exit to get around off road.
Thanks for your response Tim. I fully agree, we have an excellent base to start from and I believe it will take minimal investment (compared to other road infrastructure) to fix the missing links and provide peace of mind to cyclists and pedestrians alike. A couple of underpasses near the Bunnings roundabout and Noosa Parade will make a huge difference. And yes, those green painted bits on the roads do not constitute bikeways in my opinion – they just end suddenly, cars use them as parking spots and they’re generally just a waste of money. Please Noosa Council, fix the broken links!
Excellent article and response from Tim, and yes, getting kids to ride or walk to school depends on safe, useable alternatives. Like Tim I never ride on the green lanes on the roadway and am delighted with our network of off road paths for walking and cycling. Well done Council! I’m not sure if Council is responsible for maintenance of all the pathways, but it would be great if they could be cleared and cleaned once in a while. Fallen trees, litter, slippery parts can be a danger. We should also remember it’s legal to ride on the footpaths in Qld.
Thanks Judy. I love riding – the beautiful tree-lined path along David Low Way just before you get to Noosa Junction is my favourite. We often host Lexis English students and provide them with bikes, and they always come back raving about the beautiful access to school. With some minor work to connect the existing paths we can have truly world class cycling infrastructure that is sure to relieve pressure on the roads.
My brother is currently visiting from Germany and like myself has an opinion on EVERYTHING. 🙂 He said, that the current trend in Europe is NOT one of sealing more surfaces but better multi-use of existing. We need to make cycling safe – no doubt – so much so that we can relax helmet laws. To do so we need to connect exisiting bike lanes and reduce the speed limit on shared road infrastructures e.g. suburban roundabouts or suburban streets with on-street parking. And it needs to be diligently enforced like the 40 zones around schools. I think this should become one important ingredient in the mix to create a viable cycling network.
It may be helpful for Council’s bike planning activities if the biking community prepared a prioritized list of locations that need attention to improve bicycle safety. Tim in his comment mentions the roundabout near Bunnings. The roundabout at the Eenie Creek Rd and Reef Rd junction is also dangerous for cyclists and pedestrians crossing from Noosa Waters to the off-lead area in Weyba Creek Park. There are also bike paths in local parks where kerb crossings are needed to provide smooth connections.