Public servants began moving into the sleek 41-storey skyscraper in October 2016. Credit:Tammy Law "As a cycling nut, I know how valuable riding is as a way to maintain a healthy lifestyle," Mr de Brenni said. "1 William Street in Brisbane is among 13 government-occupied buildings throughout the CBD that have facilities for staff to encourage them to participate in active travel to and from work." Public servants began moving into the sleek 41-storey skyscraper in October 2016, with old government buildings to be demolished to make way for the Queen's Wharf development. Bicycle Queensland chief executive officer Ben Wilson said "everybody is pretty jealous" of the facilities at 1 William Street.

Hundreds of workers in 1 William Street are taking up cycling. Credit:Peter Braig "Plenty of people are offered a car parking space when they get a job in the city, well they used to be, but not any more," he said. "But to have a whiz-bang bike facility is excellent news." There are 600 cycling racks underneath 1 William Street. Credit:Felicity Caldwell Mr Wilson said not having secure storage, showers and other facilities would usually discourage people from riding to work.

"This is really an open invitation, not just to ride to work, but to be a fit and healthy employee." Mr Wilson said that decades ago no buildings had cycling facilities, whereas there were now about 5000 people in Brisbane who had access to "fantastic facilities in their offices". That means people are either giving up driving or a seat on public transport to cycle, having flow-on effects for congestion reduction, he said. Griffith University Cities Research Institute Associate Professor Matthew Burke described seeing hundreds of bikes stored under 1 William Street at a recent visit. Dr Burke said workplaces that invested in quality options for cyclists helped contribute to increases in the number of people riding in the past decade.

"You'll only have to see the numbers on the Bicentennial Bikeway, the Goodwill Bridge and coming in from the Riverwalk on the other side," he said. "Every year, there's more and more people riding to work and it's fabulous, it's great. "And because most of them are on that off-road network, they are making a very large contribution to traffic congestion reduction in Brisbane." Dr Burke said there was data on employee retention and cycling, and workplaces that provided facilities appeared to have a competitive edge in recruiting "go-get people" and retaining them. "By having such a facility, we're likely to retain our best and brightest bureaucrats rather than lose them somewhere else."

Dr Burke agreed that facilities such as secure bike storage, showers and lockers played a big role in encouraging employees to ride to work. "That's not just cyclists using those facilities, it's joggers at lunchtime and people who walk in, and various others," he said. Dr Burke said people would choose to ride over other modes of transport, even if it took longer, due to other benefits such as being close to nature, socialising and getting exercise. "This tells us that some of the ways we do cost-benefit analysis for transport projects probably needs to change," he said. Road Safety Minister Mark Bailey said about 760,000 Queenslanders cycled each week and another 1.53 million wanted to ride a bike.

"It is vital they are supported by good planning and investment in safe infrastructure," Mr Bailey said. Mr Bailey said the government had committed nearly $42 million into cycling infrastructure across Queensland in 2016-17, with more than $162 million over the next four years to improve safety.