Exactly ten years ago, in 2000, the than Beaudesert Shire Council worked on a plan to upgrade the “Gallery Walk” stretch of Long Road, one of the main tourist attractions of Tamborine Mountain.
As is often the case with major projects such as this one, moneys were spent on plans and consultants, a community survey, business consultations and meetings, stakeholder input and so on – but nothing ever came out of it…now, ten years later, Tamborine Mountain is presented with a new vision for Gallery Walk, called the “Gallery Walk Renewal Plan (2010)”.
Susanne Taylor, Senior Communications Consultant of SMEC, a major engineering consultancy firm, advises that in January this year, Scenic Rim Regional Council has commissioned SMEC to create the “Gallery Walk Renewal Plan 2010”.
A small number of copies of this plan have recently been circulated, prior to the official release scheduled for early November.
The plan provides for three stages:
STAGE 1: Create more car parking:
- SMEC suggests the provision of 12 car parking spaces at the top of Macdonnell Road, left when approaching the fig tree roundabout coming up from Oxenford. Visitors are already frequently using these spaces. The plan provides for sealing and kerbing this section to allow for “official” parallel parking.
- Another 23 car parking are suggested for Eagle Heights Road, right hand side when approaching the lower roundabout at Gallery Walk coming up from Curtis Falls. Again at least some sections of this street are already used for informal roadside parking, but some additional car parking spaces would also be created.
- The third idea is to create more car parking spaces on “Gallery Walk” itself by way of angle parking. This would require land acquisitions from the owners, and hence will be more difficult to achieve in the short to medium term. If successful and found feasible, a further 66 car parking spaces as well as 5 bus parking bays would be created.
- The Plan also identifies other land for additional car parks, however, before this could be done, further land acquisitions or other arrangements would have to be finalized.
- The Plan makes no mentioning of the possibility of using the car parking spaces at the new Sports Complex on Long Road. Visitors would transfer from the car park to Gallery Walk using shuttle buses, which would run regularly and all day during normal trading hours, at least on busy weekend days. This is easily achievable, as all facilities such as the car parking area, the buses and personnel are readily available. The only hurdle appears to be the funding.
STAGE 2: Improve safety and comfort of “Gallery Walk”
The plan mentions briefly lighting and street furniture, but overall contains very little detail of what Gallery Walk might look like in the future. A lot more detail would have to be provided here.
The beatification of the Montville main road in the Sunshine Cost Hinterland has been very successful, and could be used as an example of “how to do this”.
STAGE 3: GALLERY WALK BYPASS
It is well known that the Bypass would extend Cook Road to link to Macdonnell Road, Council already owns the land needed. The plan contains good information on the proposed intersections, speed limits, anticipated pedestrian movements etc.
Interesting is that the bypass road would also allow for the provision of 58 car parking spots and 5 large bus parking bays on a parcel of land shouldering the new bypass road. There appears to be still an issue with subsequent direct pedestrian access to Gallery Walk.
In summary, the plan has a lot of merits, but as usual in these cases, has also raised a lot of new questions. The plan will be on public display at the North Tamborine Council counter early November. Submissions from individuals, groups and organisations are encouraged and invited.
Submissions need to be sent to Council before Christmas.
Many tourism operators believe that the first step should be to build the bypass – and once local traffic starts using it - than start work on the beautification of Gallery Walk.
There are others who believe that moneys would be better spent in providing major car parking areas close to “Gallery Walk”, and not to build the bypass at all, as it might hurt local businesses.
It is of vital importance to the entire tourism industry on Tamborine Mountain as well as for anyone else driving through “Gallery Walk” that this is NOT yet again another grand plan with great ideas, pretty pictures and big “feel-good” talk fests – but in the end results in soil being turned, plans put into action and “Gallery Walk” finally receiving the makeover it so desperately needs, regardless whether it includes a bypass road or not. It appears that everyone agrees that the current car parking situation in “Gallery Walk’ is untenable, and that something needs to be done sooner rather than later.
And as for the funding of all this – well, a great start would be to use the Six Million Dollars Council appears to be determined to spend on a Beaudesert library that the vast majority of the Scenic Rim Region’s population so strongly opposes!