More on the Metro Busy-Day bike exclusion policy

There's been a lengthy discussion of this in the comments, so let me make one last point about this. The last time Metro banned bikes all day was when the Pope visited. That was a busy day for Metro, so good policy, right? Except that since then, as of July 14th, we've had 8 busier days (and previously there were two busier days).

1     07-11-08     854,638     Baseball/Women of Faith Conference
2     06-09-04     850,636     Reagan State Funeral
3     06-25-08     846,388     Smithsonian Folklife Festival/Baseball
4     07-10-08     844,530     Baseball
5     07-08-08     835,072     Baseball/Basketball
6     07-02-08     834,956     Smithsonian Folklife Festival
7     04-03-07     831,508     Cherry Blossoms/Baseball
8     06-24-08     831,464     Baseball/Basketball
9     06-20-08     829,998     Baseball/Basketball
10   04-24-08     828,973     Baseball/Basketball
11   04-17-08     828,418     Pope Visit/Soccer 

Does anyone remember the metro system being overwhelmed during off-peak hours due to bikes on any of those days? I don't. Can Metro point to any problems that came from allowing bikes on during off-peak hours on those days? I can't. So what was so special about the Pope visit? It wasn't even the busiest day ever at the time.

Now, I know, the Inauguration should crush this record and might top 1,000,000 and I'm all for a reasonable busy-day bike exclusion policy. But, considering that Metro was needlessly cautious back in April, you'll have to excuse me for not being willing to take their word for it when they say they have to exclude bikes system-wide all day long.

If they close a line or a station, they make a case as to why that piece of the system needs to be closed and for that long. If they can make a halfway compelling case as for why Metro needs to be closed to bikes system-wide from 4am to 2am then I'll shut up about it.

Comments

[guez]

This is precisely an example of what I'm talking about (see my last posting in the previous thread). You throw around a lot of numbers, but your argument is premised on a fallacy.

The fact that Metro was not overwhelmed during the Pope's visit does not mean that they were "needlessly" cautious. Their job was to plan for the worst. An analogy: just because a package bomb doesn't go off doesn't prove that the police "needlessly" cleared the area. (This may seem like an exaggerated comparison until you remember that Metro is a key part of DC's evacuation plan.)

[Lucre]

It's also worth asking what ridership was like at different times of the day. If ridership all day Pope day was at levels near ordinary rush hour traffic, it made sense to keep bikes off during what would ordinarily be "off peak" times, whereas it's possible that all the basketball and baseball games fit in enough with the rush hour schedule that the ridership was relatively light during the "off peak" times.

[w]

none of the Metro rules should be applied to people with folding bicycles. that would be plain absurd .IMO folding bicycles should be encouraged for Metro usage.

[Chris]

I thought folding bikes were allowed on Metro at any time - that's not the case?

[Ron Alford]

Folding bikes that are bagged are counted as luggage (and thus subject to the inauguration luggage restrictions).

Make sense - tuna is healthier packed in water (sweat) than oil (chain grease).

[washcycle]

Lucre, I considered that, but they don't publish the hour by hour rate, still if you average it out over the day, no single hour is particularly busy.

Guez, it is a good point that they may have believed the Pope visit would be busier and were being prudent. Maybe they give BS answers because the real answer is "We really aren't capable of estimating ridership with any accuracy - even on the 4th of July when we ban bikes every year. Our employees are too undisciplined to enforce anything beyond the most simple of rules. We agree that allowing bikes on in the wee hours would cause no negative impact, but our employees just aren't there." If so, that's sad.

[guez]

Washcycle, you're probably right about the "real answer." And I agree that Metro should do more to facilitate multi-modal transit. The question is how we persuade them to move in that direction. While your point about the "wee hours" is certainly valid, I fear that the argument falls on deaf ears. We need to pick our battles.

[w]

When overseas I noticed that there are both subway & long distance train cars I have seen that are specifically desognated for bicycles. We are not there yet here in the USA.
We are actually a very long way from there , yet, I'm afraid.