Lookout Mum, Here I Come
This is on the floating walkway in central Brisbane, which was built around a section of waterfront where the council felt it would have a tough battle in court if it had actually built a walkway just off the shoreline fixed to the river bottom as it had done elsewhere.
This means that there were sufficient lawyers and other people on high incomes, who would fight tooth and nail to protect their waterfront property.
During the January 2011 floods, a very large section (including this part) broke away and floated downstream to the bay where it was secured. The cost of repair, if it goes ahead, and that is looking doubtful, will be many millions (perhaps $70M+ ).
Remembering why the path ended up as a floating walkway in the first place.
It goes back to Queensland's complex land title system and how a couple of rarely-used small boats that cost their owners relatively little have cost the broader public a whole lot more. Properties with back yards on the river, such as those on the New Farm stretch, have rights to access the land from the river and vice versa. This is generally understood to mean boat access. So we extend rights to erect pontoons and decks.
The problem is the prohibitive cost for public authorities trying to do anything that infringes on those rights.
The design solution to overcome this boat access problem proved extremely expensive: a floating walkway with a sizeable hi-tech swinging bridge half-way along.
The expensive swinging bridge was used 16 times in four years. But property law is blind to actual use; it only sees rights and entitlements.
Plans to rebuild against the shoreline will resut in howls of protest from the neo-libertarians who argue that governments should not encroach on private freedoms, especially when it comes to property.
But this is an obvious case where a small set of rarely enacted private use rights are clearly hindering popular public infrastructure, at great public expense.
Hence we hope there is a solution to Brisbanes expensive, popular and sorely missed floating BRIDGE.
Bridges and Tunnels Theme
Lookout Mum, Here I Come
This is on the floating walkway in central Brisbane, which was built around a section of waterfront where the council felt it would have a tough battle in court if it had actually built a walkway just off the shoreline fixed to the river bottom as it had done elsewhere.
This means that there were sufficient lawyers and other people on high incomes, who would fight tooth and nail to protect their waterfront property.
During the January 2011 floods, a very large section (including this part) broke away and floated downstream to the bay where it was secured. The cost of repair, if it goes ahead, and that is looking doubtful, will be many millions (perhaps $70M+ ).
Remembering why the path ended up as a floating walkway in the first place.
It goes back to Queensland's complex land title system and how a couple of rarely-used small boats that cost their owners relatively little have cost the broader public a whole lot more. Properties with back yards on the river, such as those on the New Farm stretch, have rights to access the land from the river and vice versa. This is generally understood to mean boat access. So we extend rights to erect pontoons and decks.
The problem is the prohibitive cost for public authorities trying to do anything that infringes on those rights.
The design solution to overcome this boat access problem proved extremely expensive: a floating walkway with a sizeable hi-tech swinging bridge half-way along.
The expensive swinging bridge was used 16 times in four years. But property law is blind to actual use; it only sees rights and entitlements.
Plans to rebuild against the shoreline will resut in howls of protest from the neo-libertarians who argue that governments should not encroach on private freedoms, especially when it comes to property.
But this is an obvious case where a small set of rarely enacted private use rights are clearly hindering popular public infrastructure, at great public expense.
Hence we hope there is a solution to Brisbanes expensive, popular and sorely missed floating BRIDGE.
Bridges and Tunnels Theme