Do The Council At All Care Of Our Needs And Wants?

[A200 0]

OK I know most of you don't live in Brisbane, or have even been here before, but our council (the largest single council in Australia- Syd and Melb are made of separate councils) but the BCC has gone totally out of whack.

My first annoyance? All issues are fixed TEMPORARILY and never PERMANENT. Actually, now that I think about it, there haven't been any proper permanent fixes to anything at all recently, all the expensive projects they do are there for the short term, until they finally get round to doing something, by which it would be more expensive to do.

First I will rant about Brisbane Square, the councils new administration building. I cannot understand why, when they had the best opportunity for something truly special (as the site of it is prime position) they had to build something square and boring: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brisbane_Square . I know the building behind it, "Hitachi", is also square and boring, but it doesn't look bad as, when it was built, that was what buildings were like. As for Bris Square... the first thing I hate is that blue box at the bottom with the slanted windows. Why didn't they make all window, like in the rest of the tower? Then people could look outside properly as they look for a book etc! If the sun got annoying, then the blinds could get pulled down. It's not rocket science.
Second of all, why is it square? There are heaps of other buildings under construction in Brisbane CBD, and they are actually nicely shaped and beautiful. BS isn't.

The next part of my rant is the stupid busways they are building, and what they will be used for in the future. I know they enable the buses to skip traffic, but it isn't good when they propose that bus transit is the way forward. IT ISN'T. Look at cities like London, Paris, New York! Yes, they have buses, but they also have proper metro systems to get the bulk of people around. The BCC has not at all considered a metro system or something similar yet; they think after the busways are complete, they should be converted to Light Rail (which actually has less capacity), or else they should have been designed to be convertable to Heavy Rail (trains) which are in place in large cities around the world and can be very effective. Of course, the BCC are planning ANOTHER rapid transit system, but not a metro, it will be probably something cheap and *BLEEP* as always, and when its complete the city will be totally unorganised with 5 different types of PT modes. Why don't they scrap plans for light rail, and build future busways to be convertable to heavy rail? If all the mass transit system was the same mode, then things would run a lot smoother.

Another upsetting thing about our city- the lack of heritage buildings. I find it so sad that the council at the time was allowed to bulldoze all the nice buildings in the '70s and '80s, it really is a shame. The only ones left are City Hall, the casino and South Brisbane Station! Of course, they got rid of them to make it more "modern" without considering the effects of people in the future (1990's, 2000's, 2010's) who won't get the chance to live in a history rich city. I know heaps of train stations got demolished, as did Cloudland and countless buildings in the city.

The final thing I want to rant about- the GoMA and SLQ (SLQ in particular). In the past week I have visited it twice to see what it was like inside, and I was quite disappointed. I have seen the buildings before, but going inside really confirmed my personal belief that the SLQ doesn't look finished. It is green, like the type of green they use for temporary coats of paint, and it is also smaller than it appears, because of the massive hole in the middle, and the fact half of the building is closed to the public. THEN you have to take away all the space occupied by computers.
What is left? Very little.

Thankyou for reading my rant!