GPS tracking to highlight Brisbane’s cycling hot spots

Cycling has become so popular across Queensland that the State Government are starting to utilise data from GPS enabled smartphones to plan their infrastructure.

The Palaszczuk Government has recognised the increased popularity of cycling, and has committed to investing more than $162 million into high-priority cycle infrastructure over the next four years. Over $84 million of that investment will be spent on cycle infrastructure on the state-controlled network.

At this stage, the funding is intended to go towards more than 30 cycling infrastructure projects.

A two year action plan is set to be released, followed by a ten-year proposal, with some of the funded projects to include:

1. Veloway 1 from O’Keefe Street, Woolloongabba to Lewisham Street, Greenslopes in Brisbane
2. North Brisbane Bikeway from Bowen Hills to Wooloowin
3. Cycling facilities along sections of the New England Highway and Ruthven Street in Toowoomba
4. Bohle River Bridge cycling facilities, and improvements to North Ward Road cycling facilities in Townsville
5. Bike lanes along sections of David Low Way and Nicklin Way on the Sunshine Coast
6. Bike lanes along sections of Southport-Nerang Road from Wardoo Street to Moora Street, and the Lake Intrepid Bridge Cycleway in the Gold Coast

The next big project, a segregated bikeway along Stanley Street from the Gabba Oval to the Goodwill Bridge stretching 1.2 kilometres, is set to begin construction in early 2017.

Earlier this year, Main Roads Minister Mark Bailey said the Government was using data from Strava (which gathers data from a smartphone’s GPS function) to track bike trends, allowing expenditure to be targeted to those areas.

“We’ve got to know where cyclists are to so that we can put expenditure where it’s most needed” he said.

“We’ve got to keep building cycle paths where they maximise the network benefits and so that people can get to places really easily, so the more off-road dedicated cycleways we get the better.”

Bailey says the aim is to maximise the benefits of the cycling network by continuing to build off-road dedicated cycleways, so that cyclists can get from place to place.

Written by Emily Billiau and Claire McHardy