The Neville Bonner Bridge is an under-construction pedestrian-only bridge between the South Bank Cultural Forecourt and the Queens Wharf casino. The bridge is finished construction, but won't be open until April 2024 when the Star casino is completed.

You can't ride on it, and it doesn't really go anywhere. If you're heading to Queen's Wharf you can only do it on foot.

The bridge was named in honour of the late Senator Neville Bonner AO, the first Indigenous Australian to become a member of the Commonwealth Parliament and Australian of the Year.

Design

Opening in April 2024, Queen's Wharf Brisbane Casino will revamp the CBD and riverfront with a design that embraces the city's warm weather and honours its history, both Indigenous and European, through trails along the Brisbane River.

The 320 metre bridge is a hybrid mast and arch design, with a large steel “ribbon” arch structure complemented by a cable stay system to span the river. The bridge is designed to allow clearance for ferries and the riverside expressway, and was designed for a 1 in 2000 year flood.

Controversy

The bridge is not intended to be a transport link in the city and is planned to be foot traffic only. It was designed to deliver pedestrians to the casino, with no connection to the cycle routes on the north or south side of the river.

From the Brisbane Times:

No answers were provided by Transport Minister Mark Bailey, although Economic Development Queensland - part of State Development minister Cameron Dick's portfolio - said cyclists could not be added to the bridge according to their experts because of the "grade of bridge" for cyclists.

In a written response in May 2017 to a petition from Space for Cycling to add cyclists to the Neville Bonner Bridge, Mr Bailey said changes to land the bridge at the Bicentennial Bikeway were "constrained by the Riverside Expressway".

The bridge was a requirement for the developers to build the casino precinct. The ABC has reported that a key shareholder in the casino consortium “has a long history of association with organised crime figures and people blacklisted by gambling regulators around the world” - read more about queens wharf corruption.