State moves in to clean up CityCycle mess

Media Release

The State Government which sacked more than 14,000 people in time for Christmas has today found the resources to come to the rescue of the Brisbane City Council’s doomed CityCycle scheme.

Shadow Transport Minister Jackie Trad said the government’s announcement today that it would bail out CityCycle by linking it with go card simply highlighted the former Lord Mayor’s record of failure at City Hall.

“This CityCycle debacle will go down in history as Campbell Newman’s legacy but for the government to try and prop up this tragically flawed initiative stinks of hypocrisy,” Ms Trad said.

“At the same time this government has shown more than 14,000 people the door in time for Christmas, they have found the resources to come to the rescue of this council debacle of which Campbell Newman was the architect.

“Make no mistake – this is nothing to do with making it easier for commuters to access transport around the city.

“This is about the government trying to bail out its mates.”

Ms Trad said commuters saw through the multi-million dollar CityCycle failure and the Transport Minister’s attempts to prop it up would not lead to an increase in usage.

“It is a program that was doomed to failure from the beginning,” Ms Trad said.

“Brisbane residents are not blind – they see the rows of bikes lying unused every day and they will see that this bail out attempt is dodgy.”

Ms Trad said today’s announcement by Mr Emerson tries to gloss over the fact that people will still need to maintain two separate accounts for CityCycle and their go card”

“The announcement doesn’t change the fee structure for CityCycle which has been one of the main problems in attracting users,” Ms Trad said.

“Tourists or people without a three month CityCycle subscription will not be able to use their go card to access CityCycle bikes.

“The only thing that will change is that users will swipe their go card instead of their CityCycle user card.

“CityCycle is just one of Campbell Newman's many council failures that Brisbane rate payers are continuing to pay for.

“Linking CityCycle with go card can't swipe away its poor design, costly rate and complicated subscription process.”