Aus-Car is incorrect that each train only holds two bikes. Each car has racks for two bikes, and each train will have two cars at the minimum, and more bikes could theoretically be brought onto the cars and held by their owners. Still, two isn’t a lot, and I feel the bike-computers pain.
Other cities have different policies around bikes. When I took Caltrain between San Francisco and Mountain View (talk about a reverse commute), there were bike cars on each train with space for 40 bikes. And fold-up bikes could be taken on any car. That might be the solution for the bus-bike commuter.
What do you think? What is your experience with bikes on the bus and other forms of public transit? I’m especially interested in hearing about the bike experience on Sounder if anyone knows.
For Sounder, there’s a huge open space by every door on every car for wheelchars and bicycles. No problems!
I stopped biking to the bus and instead skateboard. It’s not as fast, but crap it’s gauranteed to get on!
While the post confuses bikes and trains a bit, the main point is that Bike & Ride has been a huge success since Metro became the first transit system to fully equip buses with racks in the early 1990′s. ST followed suit, and was quick to adopt the three-bike rack system from Sportworks when it became available.
We (I worked at KC Metro when the program started) have always seen the delays at Montlake associated with high demand for the racks. Capacity is about as high as it’s going to get, save by adding more transit service through the corridor.
One mildly infuriating characteristic of bike commuters on the 520 corridor is that they’ll wait for their particular bus (and wait, and wait) while 3-5 other routes pass by that could have gotten them within a mile of their destination. Got the bike? Use the bike. Duh. Lesson here is to do more to make route ifo available and understood, I suppose.
Commuter rail is another issue. Caltrain (mentioned in the post) is an amazing success story – they often run 2-3 bike cars per train, each of which carries 32 bikes. Alas, these “Gallery cars” are getting older, and are being replaced with the Bombardier cars we see on Souonder. Even there, Caltrain can put 16 bikes on the new equipment, and the 2 doors on the Bombardier cars allows faster loading than the 1 on the old cars.
Compare that with 4-8 bikes on Sounder, and we can easily see room for improvement there! May not be a capacity issue yet, but when Sounder is a real all-hour, two way system (*at least to Tacoma!), bike use will go up substantially.
Phil Miller
Redmond
Sounder has 2 bike tie-down places for bikes on each car, plus standing room for an additional 4 bikes per car in the vestibule. I’ve heard from other bicycle commuters that often other passengers and Sounder staff do not understand this and they get grief for it sometimes.
I am a year-round bike commuter who also uses the bus somtimes. I have already this year been ‘bumped’ to the next bus b/c of a full bike rack, unheard of until the weather improves in years past (like summer!).
Luckily, I can ride all the way (even if I was planning on using the bus that day) if this happens. A big problem with bicycling in this area is the lack of safe bicycle routes. Just because one has a bike doesn’t mean one is experienced enough to ride an extra couple miles (maybe the traffic or roadway is dangerous, maybe the person is not in shape, the terrain is poor, maybe the bike has a mechanical problem, etc.) or that just because someone has a bike they should ride further.
Many people who live to the north of Seattle are lucky enough to have nice bike routes, but those who live south or east find, or will discover, that it’s rather nice to have the bus to use on part of the route to work/home. I see this problem just getting worse.
i’m very pleased with bike racks on the buses here. the only tricky thing on occasion is when my partner and i both need to put our bike on the bus – in those cases it’s a little trickier on the old 2-bike racks since more often than not it seems there is already another bike on the rack so we can’t both get our bikes on at the same time.
i give a lot of credit to the metro drivers who are for the most part excellent and extremely accommodating of bike riders – so long as you do the right things to get the bike on/off, etc. they do an excellent job of dealing with a full bike rack on the front of the bus and the changes that must require in their turning and handling of intersection geometry, etc.
What happened to the three bike racks on metro buses?
I’m sure this one has been beaten to death but I don’t care:
We need to allow bikes to load and unload downtown. When I am downtown on my bike and I’m too tired or wet to want to ride back up to the other side of capitol hill I want to be able to take the bus. With these restrictions I have to either ride up the hill (defeating the purpose of the bus) to get to a stop where I can load.
Portland has a busy downtown with a similar ride-free area and they can handle bike racks just fine at all times.
I feel that these restrictions often cause people to avoid riding bikes because they don’t want to slog back up the hill or ride home with something they purchased downtown. It’s not very green policy.
I agree with you Ryan. The reason metro gives for not allowing bikes (at least the last one I heard) is because the need to get the buses as close together as possible. A lame excuse. It’s worse when you have a bike problem. I had a flat tire and a driver would not let me on ONE stop from the end of the ride free area even though I explained my problem (this was just before 7pm too, no traffic). So I RAN to the next stop and then got on with a glare. Some drivers do let you on/off. I think education and emails to Metro from bicyclists is the only way to get this changed. And several people I know don’t ride because of this problem – they are scared to ride in the downtown core (with good reason for a beginner commuter) yet Metro forces them off exactly there.
The three racks were pulled b/c they would sometimes start bouncing and bounce the bikes right off the rack. Metro and the mfg added straps but those proved cumbersome to use so the 3-racks were pulled pending reconfiguration.
Here’s exactly what Metro says: http://transit.metrokc.gov/tops/bus/ridefree.html
“Bicycles may be loaded or unloaded at any bus zone at any time except in the Ride Free Area between the hours of 6 a.m. and 7 p.m. daily. During these hours, loading and unloading bikes is restricted to a route’s first and last ride free stop. This is a safety policy to reduce the potential of too many cyclists being between buses in heavy downtown traffic.”
However, this is counter-intuitive. The MORE bicyclists out there the SAFER bicyclists are.
Phil, I’m one of the Montlake commuters who will take any bus (base buses included) and cycle from there.
Here’s the problem with getting mad at the cycle commuters who aren’t taking other buses: There is virtually no way for them to know where each bus goes.
At the time I write this, there is only half a schedule at Montlake. There are two three-column schedule boards, but one of them (and it does take two to handle all the routes) is covered by an advertisement for a web site.
Metro would have to provide a map showing where each route actually went in order for it to be reasonable to expect people to put any effort into figuring out what other options they have.
There are a lot of things that could be done with that Montlake stop, and as it stands, a dozen phone calls haven’t even gotten me a complete schedule.
ZOOOOBBOOOMMMBBBB!!!
It is odd how agencies decide this. Metro-no bikes on buses is racks are full. Pierce-its fine. This would make you think that its related to capacity issues. But Thurston (a smaller and less used system than pierce)…there are no bikes on buses if racks are full.
I don’t think I’d enjoy standing up on a bus trying to hold a bike while keeping from falling down.
i was on the 358 heading north this fourth of july, and the last bus came by, but wouldn’t pick up one girl because she had a bike with her, even though it was small and he was the last bus. i tried to convince him, but then he was all “do you want to walk as well?” which i really didn’t want to do. talk about power-crazy. what a douche.
in other words, i think that there should be more room for bikes, so jackass metro drivers (only a few are this rude) have no excuse.
If Metro’s site was better it would be easier to route find. Anyone know a site that I could click on a bus stop and it would graphically show all the routes? that would be nice…
While I am wishing, it would be nice to put a map with the stops on each bus. It would be simple, cheap and very nice.