Article: Council bikes cycle into South Bank

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Council bikes cycle into South Bank

Council bikes cycle into South Bank
Tony Moore
December 17, 2010 - 6:09AM

Council's CityCycle program will soon reach South Bank.

South Bank had planned to charge Brisbane City Council to place their CityCycle hire bikes in the parklands, causing a significant hiccup in the planned roll-out, it has been revealed.

Lord Mayor Campbell Newman said the charges were the reason no CityCycle hire stations had been installed in Brisbane's most popular inner-city tourist destination.

"They wanted to charge us to put the CityCycle down there, which I thought was a bit rough," he said.

Cr Newman said he had been disappointed in the approach.

"South Bank is seen as a very important destination for CityCycle users," he said.

"It is an important part of the overall scheme network and would fill an important missing link."

However, a South Bank Corporation spokeswoman said a resolution had recently been reached and the City Cycle stoush between the council and South Bank had been averted.

"Ordinarily we would charge a licence fee for something like this, but we agreed to waive the licence fee in the interest of the public good," she said.

"The cycle scheme is all about healthy living and all that sort of thing."

Neither the council, nor the South Bank Corporation, would detail the the licence fee, which varied according to the type of business.

The South Bank spokeswoman said any money raised from the licence fee would be reinvested into South Bank.

CityCycle stations will be installed at four South Bank locations in 2011; in the Cultural Forecourt near QPAC; at the entrance to the Goodwill Bridge; at the Queensland College of Art in Grey Street; and at the corner of Merivale and Melbourne streets.

By December 13, 2950 people had taken out subscriptions to the CityCycle scheme since it started in October.

Last month, there were 333 "casual" users in addition to the subscribers.

The most popular CityCycle bike terminal in November was the New Farm ferry terminal, while the least popular was the bike bay at the intersection of Drury Street and Montague Road in West End.