Good (and bad) bikes on train policies

First the NPS is reportedly "encouraging visitors to leave their cars and seek alternative transportation through the parks instead"

The railroad that twists through Cuyahoga Valley National Park started the "Bike Aboard" program last summer. It allows cyclists to ride their bikes on the trail in one direction and ride the train in the other for $2.

The fare compares with the normal $15 boarding pass for traveling anywhere along the length of the park, which covers about 30 miles between suburban Cleveland and Akron.

Bike riders stow their bikes in the train's baggage car, then climb aboard with the rest of the passengers

Such a program would work well for the C&O Trail and Amtrak.

Speaking of trains, Caltrain is having some issues

When Wildy boarded a train last week with his bike, he said a conductor told him to get off, that there was no more room. But the 39-year-old Stanford information technology employee found a place to park his bike on a rack and he refused to leave. He ended up in handcuffs and under arrest.

"I just couldn't believe it. I was just trying to catch a train to get to work," Wildy said.

But their putting together a plan

Caltrain board members will review the following proposals as part of their Bicycle Parking and Access plan:

-- Expand secure bike parking at the stations - an idea that critics say only works for people who don't bike at both ends of their trip.

-- Create a bike-sharing program where communal bicycles would be available for people to ride to and from the stations.

-- Provide subsidies for people to buy folding bicycles, the number of which is not restricted on the trains, as long as they can be stowed beneath the seats.

-- Set up an automated system that tracks bike capacity on the trains and allow cyclists to tap into that information before they head to the station.

At first they resisted making more space for bikes, but it seems they've changed their minds.

Caltrain chief Michael Scanlon said he has asked Caltrain engineers to review how passenger rail cars can accommodate more bikes - either through reconfiguring or removing seats - without compromising safety or displacing walk-on riders.

The announcement came as the Caltrain governing board unanimously adopted the "Bicycle Access and Parking Plan," the rail agency's strategy to deal with bikes on trains and at stations.

They're also considering congestion pricing for bikes at crowded times.

As Caltrain continues to break ridership records — nearly 40,000 people board trains each weekday — one of the groups most affected by overcrowding has been bicyclists, who must board cars equipped with bike racks at the end of trains.

Six percent of weekday Caltrain riders lug their bikes onboard, many of whom say they are regularly “bumped” from trains during peak commute hours.

“In their minds, the idea would be to charge enough money so the customers go away. The customers are not the problem,” Johnson said.

On Monday, Caltrain will release its draft bicycle plan to little fanfare from cyclists. Bikers complain that the new plan doesn’t add any additional bike cars and doesn’t transform any seats into bike space.

Caltrain officials says the plan will add plenty of new bike parking at its stations but concede that with ridership at an all-time high, boarding with a bike can be an exercise in frustration.

“I think they’ve got very legitimate complaints, and I sympathize with them. We’re doing more than any other transit agency and, sadly, it’s not enough,” Hill said.

I recently rode NJ Transit to Atlantic City (won $24 thanks to Mrs. Washcycle hitting a few points on the craps table) and saw quite a few bikes on board. Metro doesn't have a bicycle coordinator or a bike plan, but they could use one. It's probably asking too much, but if Metro, VRE and MARC hired a bike coordinator for all three and came up with a comprehensive plan they might have the "too many cyclists" problem that Caltrain is dealing with.

About 8 percent of [Caltrain] passengers take their bikes aboard.

Helmet tip to Richard Layman

Photo by Aunt Christina

Comments

[Bilsko]

Amtrak has fairly reasonable bike policies in place, but they could be better.
Amtrak does allow you to put bikes on trains, but they have to be boxed and go in the luggage car - and boxing requires that you turn the handlebars and remove pedals.

The issue is that not all trains have luggage cars so if you want to take your bike up to NY or anywhere else on the Northeast Regional/Acela line, you have to send your bike on one train (typically a 10PM train) and either go with it then or take another train and pick up the bike at your destination station.

I learned from fellow DC riders who did the Climate Ride (helmet tip to WashCycle for posting about it) that the experience wasn't too frustrating. Many of them said that throwing their bike on the DC-NY bus was really easy, too.

[Washcycle]

So you have to partially disassemble your bike and you may have to send your bike on a different train than yours and that is "fairly reasonable"? What would be unreasonable?

[Bilsko]

Well the policy is not unlike that practiced by airlines - except Amtrak only charges $5 as opposed to the average $100 that airlines charge for bikes.

Since this seems unreasonable to you, let me throw back the question your way and give you a chance to complete the post by offering up some suggestions. The program you describe for the Cuyahoga is great, but doesn't seem particularly relevant for Amtrak.

We're talking about different transit systems. Metro, MARC, and VRE are commuter systems and require one kind of policy to deal with a steady flow of frequent commuter cyclists. Clearly Caltrans is struggling with putting the right policies in place - and I agree that congestion pricing probably isn't the best way to go.

Amtrak is a different system which just needs to be able to accommodate the occasional traveler with a bike (maybe at most a few dozen per week). What would you suggest they do?

[Washcycle]

1. They should try to set up as uniform a policy system-wide as possible. All lines are different, but the rules should be simple and easy to access.

2. Since we're only talking a few bikes per week, we don't need much space. Amtrak should try to accommodate all cyclists with roll on service. I've never been on a packed Amtrak train, so it seems to be the space is available for bike storage for one to two bikes per train set.

3. Allow you to reserve a bike space when you buy your ticket. I don't mind paying a little more for this. This will ensure that their aren't too many bikes on a train and allow them to keep track of bike demand.