This column has in the past been critical of the revamped King George Square because of the severe heat that strikes pedestrians crossing it during summer months.
Of course such criticism is shared by probably only 97 per cent of people who have experienced firsthand the new square.
Now work is about to finish on the planting of several extra trees to give a bit more shade to those brave souls who venture into the square during daylight hours. But in addition to complaints about the heat, your columnist has also drawn attention to the potentially dangerous design of the sets of shallow steps on the Ann Street side of the square.
The steps are difficult to distinguish, and their low height has led me and others to almost lose their footing.
The problem is exacerbated by the fact each step is very wide and in the middle becomes a relatively narrow ramp between levels. So anyone using them cannot always be sure if they are on the ramp or must take a deliberate step up or down.
But recently someone within the Brisbane City Council has painted bright yellow lines on the edge of the steps to mark their edges clearly.
This should go some way towards saving people's ankles from breaking.
The question is, how many such injuries or similar were sustained before the warning lines were applied? Yet again, the problem to my mind should have been as obvious as the heat problems to those who were paid a lot to design the revamped square.
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Above is a snap taken on my Box Brownie on the morning of Wednesday 12 January, about 18 hours before the flood peak that hit Brisbane. It shows water lapping at the planned new base for our national broadcaster the ABC now being built at South Bank adjacent to the Conservatorium of Music.
The picture below is one I took the following day after the flood peak. It shows the old ABC headquarters at Toowong. The broadcaster’s former site, from what your columnist could see, seemed to have escaped inundation even though its lower level flooded in 1974.
While I am not aware of how high the water reached at the new South Bank site, the flood “tide marks” visible on nearby properties suggested to me the new ABC site may have been well and truly waterlogged.
It does seem a bit odd that the ABC has agreed to move to a new site that turns out to be adversely impacted by a flood peak lower than 1974s.
And if the ABC had been at South Bank during the flood and was isolated by the rising river, would it have been able to deliver the blanket coverage it did give to the floods except by sticking a camera or microphone out the window?
