Speech by Councillor Seal Chong Wah, to full Brisbane City Council Council Meeting, Thurs 26th Jun 2025

Strategy 2.1.3 Build the Transport Network, lists traffic calming projects.

Across the entire city, this budget only funds two Local Area Traffic Management (LATMs) devices. Just two traffic calming projects for a city of over 1.3 million people. 

Meanwhile, in Paddington Ward alone, I could name over a dozen streets where residents are crying out for traffic calming. Just in the past year, I’ve spoken with many residents desperate for safer local neighbourhood streets.

We know from the Lord Mayor’s own words, that he believes pedestrian crossings and traffic calming projects are downgrades. 

This LNP council does not care about pedestrian safety and doesn’t understand the concept of livable neighbourhoods and how important this is in creating a community.

My ward received a few very minor works in this program budget, such as kerb and channel upgrades. However none of these projects are what my residents want, which is traffic calming in local neighbourhood streets, pedestrian crossings, wombat crossings, pedestrian refuges, and lower speed limits in local roads.

Eagle Terrace in Auchenflower received $225,000 for kerb and channel work. Under the Road Construction Minor Traffic Density Program as part Strategy 2.1.3 

Windsor Road, Red Hill, $119,000 for some Investigation and design work under the Suburban Corridor Modernisation Strategy 2.1.3 

Two other minor commitments: road network improvements design for Countess St, Petrie Tce, under strategy 2.1.1 and some Preliminary Road Designs at Kelvin Grove Road and Enoggera Roads under Strategy 2.1.1. 

For these last two projects, I couldn’t even get any information or the budget figures for.

I want to put on record that as a new Councillor, it is embarrassing and incredibly childish to see our Council committee Chairs, LNP Chairs, as happened in this committee, filibustering with fake questions and long answers, just to stop other Councillors from receiving what is public information. 

Information that should be available to all residents. This just undermines democracy.

Anyone would think the LNP is running their own private company and not representing residents in a local government. They certainly act as if the Brisbane City Council is their own private company. They have forgotten that transparency is part of a good healthy democracy. 

This Council can find millions for road widening and traffic recalibrations that do nothing to ease congestion, but won’t fund basic safety upgrades that communities are begging for.

Strategy 2.1.3 Build the Transport Network, lists traffic calming projects. But the LNP administration appears to have redefined what counts as “traffic calming.” 

Some paint and a separated refuge island are not going to slow down rat running vehicles. The Lord Mayor and his budget continues to prioritise speeding motorists over the safety of our residents and their families in local neighbourhood streets.

I do want to acknowledge one community win.

Strategy 2.1.3 Build the Transport Network, lists the ‘Toowong Upgrade Projects’. This includes design work for the Sylvan Rd separated bikeway.

After more than a decade of sustained advocacy from our Bike User Group and residents, this budget finally includes design work and forward budget projections to build the long-overdue separated bikeway along Sylvan Road in Toowong.

This is a win for the community and I want to thank and acknowledge the many individuals and groups who have been part of this campaign, including Space 4 Cycling Brisbane, and all of this city’s Bicycle User Groups. Your work, your persistence, and your vision are what got us here. 

Since being elected, I’ve made this a priority. I will continue to push for a safe and well connected bicycle network. Our fight for the safety and support of cyclists and other active transport users will continue.

The bikeway is now 11 years overdue. And until there is real money, real machinery, and real progress on-site, and not just a design, we cannot get complacent. 

So I’m calling on the community to keep making noise, because until the first bike is safely on the road in a separated lane, we’re not done yet.

This LNP Council has a long history of promising future projects just in time for media stories, then letting them drop. Look at the so-called ‘Bridges for Brisbane’ program. Back in 2019, we were promised five Green Bridges. Remember that fanfare? 

The Lord Mayor stood up and promised iconic infrastructure that would transform how people move around this city. 

Well, fast forward six years, and two have been quietly cancelled and there’s still no funding in sight for the West End to Toowong Green Bridge. Under Strategy 2.1.3 Build the Transport Network, ‘Bridges for Brisbane Program’, all we have is the last payments for the Kangaroo Point Bridge.

Despite being one of the most crucial missing links in our active transport network. Despite spending millions on concept designs. Despite glossy consultation rounds and artist impressions. We still don’t even have a business case for the West End to Toowong bridge.

This is an Infrastructure program budget that prioritises out-dated transport priorities with no clear contemporary vision for urban mobility in the 21st century. Spending yet more money on widening roads, tinkering with expensive intersection upgrades. While we don’t even have a basic separated cycle network on the main arterial transport networks, throughout our city. 

Trying to cycle through my Paddington Ward is completely unsafe or extremely slow.  Trying to cycle anywhere out West, away from the riverside, is a disaster.

There is an annual expenditure budget for Program 2 ‘Infrastructure for Brisbane’ of about $1 billion dollars and what is this LNP administration doing with that $1 billion? 

What is the outcome of spending $1billion on our road network in one year? This LNP budget states the ‘Infrastructure for Brisbane’ program, and I quote, 

“improves connectivity throughout the city for residents, visitors and businesses. A connected, integrated and sustainable transport network is vital to delivering economic, social and environmental benefits as part of Council’s long-term vision for the city.”

Lord Mayor, through the Chair, 20 years of LNP budgets have not delivered a “connected integrated and sustainable transport network”. Instead we have a city that is now the 10th most congested city in the world. 

I will not be voting in support of this program budget.