Why drive business away?

FROM MY CORNER .... with Ann Brunswick


When will some government somewhere on the face of this earth call a halt to their kowtowing to cars? The latest example is the Brisbane City Council and its plans to scrap kerbside parking along both sides of most of Ann Street, Fortitude Valley on Saturdays and Sundays. The reason apparently is to alleviate weekend traffic congestion that slows traffic flow and delays BCC bus services.

The BCC has taken no account of the impact the change will have on business operators, not just along Ann Street, but in the Valley as a whole. Let’s also not forget that fewer car paring spaces means fewer people at the weekend Valley Markets too.
Of course as more people drive cars the more there will be on our roads. The solution so far has been to widen roadways and do as the BCC is planning, remove kerbside parking on relevant thoroughfares.
But surely there needs to be a limit. More road lanes simply means more cars will use them. Shouldn’t we be telling motorists that if they want to drive, then they will simply have to plan their trip to take account of congestion.
The alternative is to keep widening our major roads. Just how wide would Ann Street need to be to ensure a quick trip through the Valley? Five lanes? Six, seven, eight? Do drivers have a right to expect a quick trip to wherever they want to go? A
nd who bears the cost of enabling them to do so? Yes, that’s right, it’s us the taxpayers and ratepayers.
But let’s not forget the cost imposed on business operators through the removal of parking spaces and imposition of clearways.
***

Visiting the University of Queensland at the weekend, it was not possible to escape the sight of rubbish strewn around wheelie bins on the campus and indeed in nearby streets.


It occurred to me that students may have become less environmentally concerned since my days playing rugby for the uni club. But just as soon as that thought flashed into my mind, the real reason for the widespread untidiness revealed itself in the shape of bush turkeys and crows scavenging through open rubbish bins and any wheelie bin that had its lid even partly open.
After leaving the campus and driving along Sir Fred Schonell Drive in my trusty Land Rover, bush turkeys could be seen in abundance. Some of those also had found open wheelie bins.
It could be the large number of unit blocks in the area and the consequently high numbers of wheelie bins that sustain such an obviously large population. But boy, do they make a mess of the place.
As an animal lover, albeit one who spent a few years castrating beasts in my time as a jackaroo, culling the bush turkeys would not be a humane or sensible solution. A better approach would be to ensure wheelie bin lids and public rubbish bins too all have their contents firmly shut away from prying beaks.
***

Many small business operators advertise their goods or services with signs on their vehicles. But the other day my eyes fell on an instance where maybe such an approach is not such a good idea.

Sitting at traffic lights was a small sedan with L-plates fixed front and rear and the name of a driving school painted on its side doors. Unfortunately, also on its driver’s side door was a rather large dent where another vehicle obviously had hit the driving school vehicle side on. The expression used to describe such an impact is t-boned I believe. Maybe not the best type of publicity for such a business.