first posted at Great City
Bikes on Caltrains (Liz Hafalia/SF Gate)
This article about a recent win for bike commuters in San Francisco got me thinking, largely because of the image above, about how bike commuters will be supported when Sound Transit opens in July 2009. The image shows what appears an incredibly effective another model, where “gallery cars” hold bikes in one car, rather than sprinkled along the train.
I see a number of potential advantages to this model, not the least of which is that the gallery cars are placed at a consistent location in the trains (usually last), so that you don’t have to scramble like mad to find a car that has an open rack. But like minded bicyclists, in their gear, can ride together, not have to worry about getting grease on someone’s business suit and, if need be, squeeze together to make a bit more room. Plus, that open car–without bikes–is perfectly fine for passenger overflow.
Back to San Francisco where even with these gallery cars, there still wasn’t enough capacity on the trains:
“It’s very hard to plan your day when you don’t know whether you’ll get on the train. If I liked to gamble, I’d go to Vegas,” said Paul Schreiber, a software developer who commutes between the 22nd Street Station in San Francisco and both the Sunnyvale and Mountain View stations on the Peninsula. He said he gets bumped every week or two.
So, after much cajoling by the bicycle advocacy community to fix the problem, Caltrains is taking the following steps:
Under the new policy, the Bombardier cars, which now have rack space for 16 bikes, will be re-outfitted to carry 24. The older gallery cars, which now hold 32 bikes, will be reconfigured for 40.
With the change, the total available bike slots in the peak commute period will increase from the current average of 2,300 to 2,900, said Caltrain spokeswoman Christine Dunn.
A total of 272 seats will be removed. The retrofit would cost about $200,000 and take eight to 12 weeks to complete. Harvey said he hopes work can start in April.
The board also set a goal of having two bike cars per train during the morning and evening commutes.
It seems like the culture and values of San Francisco and Seattle are similar, so I could see fairly heavy bicycle use in combination with light rail, especially in the urban areas. However, if Sound Transit repeats the policy it has for the Sound Commuter Trains then there would only be 2 spots per train. Which hardly seems like enough.
At a $200,000 premium to retrofit the trains, it seems like a needless expense if ST is planning their trains with proper bike storage now. So with Sound Transit ramping up for their big day in the sun, does anyone know how they are going to handle bikes?
