"Other cities like Sydney, Melbourne and Perth are building physically segregated bikeways but Brisbane is so far behind," said Richard Bean, co-convenor of the CBD Bicycle Users Group. "We have 200 metres in George Street and that's it." The announcement comes after the council's LNP administration voted down a massive public push earlier this year to install fully segregated bikeways between Milton Road and Coronation Drive. Dr Bean said an online petition presented to council, one of the most signed in the municipality's history, attracted 755 signatures asking for the installation of protected lanes along Sylvan Road. However, the LNP administration used its majority to vote against it.

CBD BUG has regularly called Sylvan Road the "missing link" in Brisbane's cyclist infrastructure. The busy thoroughfare connects two fully segregated off-road bike paths that link Richlands, in the city's far south-west with Toowong, and the Bicentennial Bikeway, which joins Toowong with the CBD. Audits done by CBD BUG show that 40 per cent of all inbound traffic on Sylvan Road in the morning peak is cyclist traffic. Dr Bean said it was also one of the most dangerous, along with Annerley Road. In the 2014-15 financial year, he said, three female cyclists were hospitalised after crashes along the strip.

Cr Matic said the peak-hour cyclist clearways were a bid to balance the competing demands of cyclist safety with parking across the city. "With competing demand between on-street parking and cyclists identified as a key issue, the parking taskforce recommended trialling cycle lanes in peak periods and then reverting back to parking spaces during off-peak periods," he said. Dr Bean said there had been mixed responses from cyclists to the success of the trial along Annerley Road. "There has been a lot of reports there are cars parked in the clearways in those peak hours," he said. "As Bicycle Queensland has said, they could look at having some more right turns forbidden because there have been two hospitalisations of cyclists since beginning of trial, both where cars were making right hook turns."

Cr Matic also last week announced that the Annerley Road peak hour cyclist trial would be expanded to cover both directions of the busy thoroughfare, after a recommendation by Queensland coroner Christine Clements. Ms Clements made the recommendation at the conclusion of a probe into the death of 22-year-old Danish cyclist Rebekka Meyer, who was killed when she was hit by a truck at the notorious intersection of Annerley Road and Stanley Street in South Brisbane in September 2014. Cr Matic said while the recommendation of bi-directional peak hour lanes would be adopted in Annerley Road, they would not be trialled in Sylvan Road. "In response to the coronial report, the current peak-hour dedicated cycling trial underway at Annerley Road will be extended to both inbound and outbound traffic," he said. "Sylvan Road has different cyclist patterns to Annerley Road, traffic investigations revealed cyclists were travelling in greater numbers in both directions during peak periods on Annerley Road."