“What will essentially happen is that buses that are coming in from West End – so the CityGlider services – will have to give way to Metro services,” Cr Schrinner said. “What that will do is give priority to Metro services. Metro has always been designed to have priority and right of way in the network. “So provided that those West End services give way at the (Victoria) bridge, we can keep the frequencies up there.” The buses running in and out of West End will stop on Melbourne Street and give way to the Brisbane Metro services, which will run from an underground bus station being built at Melbourne Street. Councillor Jonathan Sri hoped the new Metro system would be faster overall, so West End bus services would not be slower.

“You are still going to get efficiency gains with the station redesign and the redesign of the Melbourne Street intersection,” he said. “However, we should not be cannibalising frequency and reliability of one service to improve the Metro. “They can’t seriously be considering slowing down the blue CityGlider in order to accommodate the Metro.” Cr Sri said the big question was the complex task of building the underground Melbourne Street Metro station which was still awaiting approval from the Queensland government. Concept images for the new Metro Cultural Centre station at South Brisbane, as part of the council's Brisbane Metro plans. Credit:Brisbane City Council

“I cannot see how they are going to keep that (Melbourne-Grey streets) intersection open and keep the busway operational while they build an entire new station under there,” he said. The changes to the bus and cycling lanes across the Victoria Bridge were announced on Tuesday morning after four months of community consultation. The main change is reducing the Brisbane Metro lanes from four lanes to three lanes and giving a predicted 10,000 cyclists a month a dedicated lane across the Victoria Bridge. Brisbane City Council will also upgrade to the nearby William Jolly Bridge at North Quay to let traffic come off the Victoria Bridge by 2023, Cr Schrinner said. Cr Schrinner said the council would spend $5 million to improve intersections on the four-lane William Jolly Bridge to cater for the 8000 vehicles which would be forced off the Victoria Bridge when the work is finished in 2023.

“We will see most of the traffic on the Victoria Bridge divert to the William Jolly Bridge,” Cr Schrinner said. “We will be investing in $5 million worth of upgrades to accommodate that and to maintain access to the CBD. “William Jolly is four lanes, so it has double the carrying capacity as the two lanes for general traffic on the Victoria Bridge. “Our modelling shows that if we do intersection upgrades – that $5 million investment – we can accommodate any change in traffic flow.” Cr Schrinner said Brisbane City Council’s traffic studies showed traffic would not be funnelled to the Go Between toll tunnel, which could not be allowed under state government legislation.