Brisbane City Council's commitment to replace motorcycle parking bays lost to the Queen's Wharf development is behind schedule with just over a third of the bays delivered.
On February 7 the council revealed four priority sites across Brisbane CBD to add 94 motorcycle parking space by the end of that month - North Quay (37), Albert Street (10), Kurilpa Park at South Brisbane (24) and William Street, between Elizabeth Street and the Victoria Bridge (23).
But, to date, only 33 of those spaces have been delivered.
The bays at the William Street site had already been installed and in use at the time the council made their commitment.
The council submitted a development application for the 24 bays at Kurilpa Park on April 24, almost two months after the bays were supposed to be in use.
That application will now go through approval stages, including being opened for community feedback, before the work can commence.
The council's infrastructure chairwoman Amanda Cooper said the spaces at Kurilpa Park were still planned and the council received ownership approval from the State Government in April.
Further, the spaces proposed for North Quay had increased to 46 spaces between Tank and Turbot streets and were currently in the details design stage, with 15 pending state approval.
"Our on-street parking and footpath spaces have always been highly sought after and therefore council balances the needs of pedestrians, cyclists, motorcyclists, buses, taxis, commercial vehicles for allocation of spaces," Cr Cooper said.
"Council has been advised by the State Government that over half of the of all motorcycle spaces removed during construction will be returned following completion construction of Destination Brisbane, with just 90 permanently removed.
"In preparation for the raft of changes that has come as a consequence of this major CBD State Government project, council has identified an additional 250 potential motorcycle spaces, which in some cases will be located on State Government land and will require owner's approval," she said.
Motorcycle Riders Association Queensland president Chris Mearns said ???the council indicated to them some bays had been replaced, but said it was nowhere near what was lost and had created enormous frustration amongst riders.
"It has an enormous impact, the amount of motorcycle parking bays that are available in and around the CBD basically get taken up by about 7am," Mr Mearns said.
"Its been an ongoing issue for quite a long time that just gets worse because more people are buying, registering and using motorbikes... but then they are forced to try and find the appropriate parking.
"Most of what you see is an expression of frustration in not being able to find satisfactory or sufficient motorcycle parking.
"If you're going to park legally you're then forced into paying carparks, which is certainly not a cheap option even for a motorcycle."
Mr Mearns said there had been suggestions for Brisbane to follow a motorcycle parking scheme similar to Victoria where motorcyclecan park on the footpath under certain circumstances in the CBD.
"It doesn't particularly work in Queensland because the amount of footpath width in our [Brisbane] CBD does not match the footpath width in Melbourne CBD," he said.
"Therefore they can't really allow it as it doesn't leave enough footpath width for pedestrians."
Brisbane resident and motorcycle rider Jaimyn Mayer said the loss of parking bays on William Street resulted in an overflow of the bays on Gardens Point Road.
"This is no where near enough parks to accommodate the large amount of students who ride to uni or work in the surrounding areas," Mr Mayer said.
"These zoned spaces fill up very quickly and it's hard to find a park when you need one."
Mr Mayer said riders had resorted to parking on a clear patch of land near the parking bays and that the council's decision to fine these bikes for illegally parking instead of providing the desperately needed bays was revenue raising.
'They're probably making more money fining the 30-40 people a day a hundred dollars each than they would by putting more parks there," he said.
There are currently 145 designated free parking bays on Gardens Point Road.
In February the council listed Queensland University of Technology's Gardens Point campus as an area for future motorcycle parking locations but have not released details as to where, how many or when parking bays would be installed there.
"Council will continue to progress works on identifying locations for other motorcycle parking spaces in the city," Cr Cooper said.
