AT WHAT point does a pedestrian mall cease to be a mall and become a drinking and dining precinct through which pedestrians are funnelled, forced to negotiate its canyons as best they can? It is a question that needs an answer, for Brisbane's Queen Street Mall is no longer the people-friendly place envisioned by its creators.
The last car drove down Queen St in 1981 and the mall was opened the following year, in time for the Commonwealth Games, initially bound by Edward and Albert streets.
I waited patiently for trams in Queen St as a youth, standing in the optimistically named Safety Zones in the middle of the road.
The Mt Gravatt tram would then trundle across the Victoria Bridge and turn left, my nostrils wrinkling as it passed The Fish Board, before carrying me on to my stop at Holland Park.
Queen St had been a thoroughfare since the colony's earliest days and its closure to vehicular traffic and transformation into a mall - denounced by critics as trendy town-planning madness that would cause traffic chaos - has been a spectacular success.
Along the way, however, its character has changed and it is time that the city reviewed how it looks and how it works.
Restaurants have gradually encroached on the thoroughfare.
Competing for space and attention with the restaurants are two newsagencies, a juice bar, a large visitors' centre and a stage from which lingerie models were banned mid-parade last week when their French knickers were deemed inappropriate by Brisbane Marketing.
The eateries are as much - or more - about drinking as eating, with roughly half their floor space taken up with tall drinking stands and red vinyl bar stools.
At least one adds flat-screen television sets to the mix.
"Catch all your live sport here in HD - open 24 hours a day, 7 days a week," proclaim the signs.
You might well ask if the mood and atmosphere of our subtropical capital is effectively captured by a bunch of beer drinkers sitting around in shorts and singlets watching some games of English soccer on television.
There is a tired sameness about the food and beverage venues, with their plastic-sheafed tourist menus.
The image is completely at odds with the critically acclaimed restaurants in the Eagle St precinct, which represent, in part, the true dining heart of the city.
Put simply, some of the restaurants do not present well. They possess neither chic nor style.
They are public bars serving pub food in the middle of the city's premier shopping zone.
I'll be accused of being elitist for saying so, but so be it.
I've been accused of worse crimes.
Simply, it is possible to project a casual ambience and still be inclusive and I refuse to concede that mediocrity is a virtue.
These venues need to undergo a complete refurbishment for, as they stand, they do the city a disservice.
Apart from their lack of aesthetic appeal, there are too many of them.
The juice bar should be relocated away from the mall.
When I visited last week, the cardboard boxes of carrots and oranges stacked beside it did nothing for the visual appeal of the mall.
Aesthetics aside, they intrude too much into the mall and impede pedestrian traffic.
Walk up from Edward St and the sprawl of the eateries forces you into a narrow channel where you battle against the opposing tide of humanity to make headway.
The Brisbane City Council has allowed these establishments to take over the mall and must make a considerable amount of money from the rent it charges them.
The concept behind the mall, however, was for it to be an amenity for citizens and visitors, a free-flowing oasis in the city heart, not a revenue stream for the Brisbane City Council.
In April, the $100 million renovation of the Wintergarden Centre opens.
This is as good a catalyst as any for a hard look at the mall and how it presents to the 26 million people who visit the precinct each year.
The Wintergarden project's development director, Chris McCluskey, voices the concerns of a number of tenants whose businesses line the mall and the owners of international brands who have spent significantly on shop fit-outs in the new centre.
"The landlords and the investors are doing these things and the city needs to do a bit of it by looking at how the mall is formed now," McCluskey says.
"Universally, the comment I get is that there is not enough space for people to walk around.
"There's too much clutter. Some of it is necessary and you need food and beverage outlets and a visitor information centre but is it composed the right way?
"Is what we offer appropriate for 2012 and beyond? They are the questions that are being asked."
Walking up the mall towards the Victoria Bridge, you come across a bare expanse of sun-baked stone outside the casino, a lesser version of the man-made Death Valley that is the City Square.
Beyond that lies South Bank, shimmering across the river like a mirage. How to get there? Trudge across the bridge in 100 per cent humidity with not a suggestion of shade to be found.
The mall, surely, should flow into South Bank and be linked to it by, at the very least, a covered walkway.
The city is changing. The mall needs to change with it.
View source
Metro Hotel Tower Mill's General Manager, Allan Hilt
