By Felicity Caldwell
February 4, 2025
Car parking will be banned for longer on several of Brisbane’s major roads under a plan to extend clearway hours and speed up traffic.
The Brisbane City Council project will first review the Musgrave Road and Waterworks Road corridor, between Red Hill and The Gap, which has clearways 7-9am inbound and 4-7pm outbound, Monday to Friday.
The corridor carries almost 130,000 vehicles during peak-hour each afternoon.
Lord Mayor Adrian Schrinner has announced a proposal to extend the hours of clearways on several Brisbane roads, starting with Waterworks Road.
Changes will be open to community consultation, but could include adding an extra hour or two to clearway times in the morning and afternoon, and adding clearways on Saturdays.
Other clearways will be reviewed in the future, including Bowen Bridge Road to Lutwyche Road, Abbotsford Road, Wynnum Road, Vulture Street, Wellington Road, Moggill Road, Webster Road, Wickham Terrace to Leichhardt Street, St Pauls Terrace, and Klumpp Road.
The council has also asked for suggestions of other roads that might benefit from clearways.
Lord Mayor Adrian Schrinner said there were limited options to widen Waterworks Road due to character homes, and road upgrades were expensive.
“Clearways are a critical tool that can cost-effectively keep traffic moving,” he said.
“If you have both lanes on each side blocked by parked cars, you’ve halved the capacity of the road. We know that it can also hold up buses and public transport as well.
“We’re thinking each corridor won’t cost more than a couple of hundred thousand dollars at the most.”
Better Streets for Ashgrove spokesman Stephen Hanley said extending clearways would ease congestion in transit lanes, benefiting motorists and bus commuters alike.
Stephen Hanley, from Better Streets for Ashgrove, says traffic calming and footpath improvements could improve safety in the area.
“The transit lane experiences much less congestion, and I empathise with commuters I saw stuck in long queues in the general traffic lane on the day that school holiday traffic conditions ended,” he said.
Hanley prefers to cycle to the city using side streets, and said safety could be improved by reducing speed limits and improving footpaths.
He said some footpaths on Waterworks Road were disconnected, and many curb ramps were dangerously steep, “resembling a BMX track”.
Clotilde Bélanger, from The Gap, often rides into the city, but avoids Waterworks Road except off-peak when traffic is light.
Clotilde Bélanger takes a lengthy detour around the city to avoid travelling on Waterworks Road.
“If you’re going to make it a clearway, I would think only allowing buses [in one lane] and having a better bus system would be better for more people,” she said.
Bélanger said she also supported footpath upgrades and improvements to bikeways.
“An opportunity to do a very straight bikeway along Waterworks Road would be amazing,” she said.
Brisbane Times asked the Lord Mayor if extending clearways might encourage more people to drive, worsening congestion, and whether council would consider bike or bus lanes.
Schrinner said it was always a consideration, but Waterworks Road had a fixed width, and it was “about sharing the space”.
“And so what we will make a judgment on is, what changes can we make to move the most number of people?” he said.
Last year, there were at least 9650 instances of motorists blocking clearways – which attracts a $483.90 fine – and more than 1660 vehicles towed from clearways.
