Your city buses with bike racks?

[jessmarimba]

Think Richmond, VA has some buses with bike racks.

[7rider]

Metro-D.C. area buses also have bike racks on them.

[Eden]

Seattle started with 2 up racks and due to high demand switched to 3 up racks - there've been some technical snafus... the 3 racks aren't as sturdy and the first batch had to be totally replaced. The new ones seem to be a bit better, but they are getting stuck up or down fairly regularly (while down is better for us, the drivers can't see them when they are down with no bikes on.....). I had to wait for the next bus a few weeks ago (I had a sidewall blow out on my rear tire!) because the rack was stuck up. The driver offered to let me bring my bike on, but the next one was only 10 min away so I was nice too and declined.

We have bike hangers on our light rail - really they should have two hangers in each spot, there's enough space, but I've never seen them fill with bikes. Most of the time you just have to kick some tourist's baggage out....

[NbyNW]

11 lines in Edmonton have bus racks. Still a lot more to do!

[skhill]

I'm in Lexington, KY, and all our full-size buses have 2 up racks. On some routes, they see a lot of use, on others not so much. Using one made me realize just how heavy my bike is!

[Fredwina]

The Socal agencies I'm familiar with (LACMTA(Metro), Foothill, Omnitrans, and the EL Monte Trolley) all have them_)

[shootingstar]

I agree Grog, that some European cities have some very narrow streets.

In terms of the density...maybe as reason why there are less tendencies to have racks on local buses. There are some big cities that are sprawly with dreary suburbs, just not as widespread in geographic coverage compared to many North American cities, big and small.

North America is hugely sprawly which has made some urban planning designs not terribly efficient.

An article that I just wrote today for our tourism board to promote how to use cycling in combination with ferry, bus, train, etc. for trips to islands, etc.

Yes, Groundhog it is possible to do it our region with bike, etc. and without a car. We do it most of the time. (Well, we don't have a car.) Maybe above link will give you ideas for trip planning. lst link in starting the topic thread was part I --about multi-modal travel within our city.

[colorisnt]

We had them in Bloomington, IN on the city buses and we have them on the Columbia, MO buses. But in B-Town, we didn't get any on the school buses.

[crazycanuck]

Ok, has anyone poked & prodded thier local/state infrastructure folks to implement the bike rack scheme? If you have the letter you used to introduce the idea, would you mind if i read it?

Do they allow them during peak times?
Is there a website stating how much they cost to implement??
Where can i find the best stats???

As far as i'm aware no bus routes in Australia have bike racks.

[shootingstar]

Ccanuck:

This database: http://tris.trb.org/ is a biggie in the transportation research world. Plug in search box: bike racks on buses You will get a wealth of case studies.

By the way, I just found out: Saskatoon, Saskatchewan has bike racks on their local buses. It's also a bike-friendly city, according to my partner who chats up with other cycling advocates. Amazing, eh? Yay!!

It's important to give several years for use to catch on. I was browsing in our transit authority's public database: looks like bike racks on buses discussion started as far back as 1999. Looks like installation started sometime in 2001 or abit later ...took awhile when old buses replaced with new. I am aware there was a big push to get our new buses into the fleet, in time for the Olympics. Hence with new bus, came a rack, etc. But one would have to contact TransLink.

Apparently we have approx. 1,000 buses in our fleet to serve Metro Vancouver. It would be reasonable as a conservative guess, at least 1 bike per day per bus, is carried...which would calculate to 1,000 bikes carried daily. (Some routes would be very heavy. Fully loaded every single bus on a particular route for at least 12 hrs. #602 bus goes a ferry terminal. Always loaded with bikes for every bus during summer. 2 buses runs every 30 min. one going north and other going south = 96 bikes carried by 1 bus over 12-hr. period. )

Vancouver is different than other parts of Canada, because we seldom get much snow so there are always some cyclists even in winter.

Contrast this to: http://www.jsonline.com/blogs/lifestyle/90875194.html Frankly, people need to see long-term development on this. Not expect instant adoption in lst year or so.

I guess the peak hr. restrictions that you are referring would be bringing bikes directly inside a train or inside a bus??

[NbyNW]

Seattle's system had peak hour restrictions for a while, I think it was something like no bike loading/unloading in a specific section of the downtown corridor. I always guessed that they didn't want to slow down boarding times, but I think it takes longer for people to board the bus during a busy period than to put a couple bikes on the rack. Could also have been that the buses only had so much space to stack at curbside stops.

I'm a bit fuzzy on the details since it didn't impact my commute (I never worked downtown), but I think after the bus tunnel re-opened (sometime in the last 2 years) they began to permit people to use the bike racks downtown at any time.

[Deborajen]

Wichita just got racks installed within the past year. Our mayor is making fitness and recreation a priority since we've been one of the top 25 fattest cities in the country several times. We've gotten the new bike racks, the city has updated some of its bicycling laws, and they've even resurfaced a really bad portion of the river path. We're going to have a bicycle-friendly city yet! (OK - One can hope!)

An interesting thing about the racks - I went to a public meeting prior to the bicycling laws update and the racks were mentioned. One of the council members at the meeting said that a lot of people are getting off of the bus and forgetting to get their bikes. I guess if you get on at the front and get off at the back, and the rack is on the front of the bus - it's easy to see it happening. That's got to be a helpless feeling, though - seeing the bus drive away and then remembering the bike --

[Groundhog]

An interesting thing about the racks - I went to a public meeting prior to the bicycling laws update and the racks were mentioned. One of the council members at the meeting said that a lot of people are getting off of the bus and forgetting to get their bikes. I guess if you get on at the front and get off at the back, and the rack is on the front of the bus - it's easy to see it happening. That's got to be a helpless feeling, though - seeing the bus drive away and then remembering the bike --

Yeah, I'm wondering when I'll forget and have that happen to me!

[Eden]

An interesting thing about the racks - I went to a public meeting prior to the bicycling laws update and the racks were mentioned. One of the council members at the meeting said that a lot of people are getting off of the bus and forgetting to get their bikes. I guess if you get on at the front and get off at the back, and the rack is on the front of the bus - it's easy to see it happening. That's got to be a helpless feeling, though - seeing the bus drive away and then remembering the bike --

ummm sad fact is that there are some folks who steal bikes and then "dump" them by leaving them on city bus racks. Most people who are riding don't forget to get their bikes when they get off....

[Melalvai]

Wichita just got racks installed within the past year. Our mayor is making fitness and recreation a priority since we've been one of the top 25 fattest cities in the country several times. We've gotten the new bike racks, the city has updated some of its bicycling laws, and they've even resurfaced a really bad portion of the river path. We're going to have a bicycle-friendly city yet! (OK - One can hope!)

Oh, I really hope so. Kansas needs so much in the way of bicycle-friendliness. It's a great state for biking but it's very uncoordinated about it. Lawrence is a bronze level BFC, and I think one of the KC burbs, Olathe or Overland Park maybe, might be too. I'd love to see Wichita the first silver or better BFC. I was surprised that Lawrence is bronze, because it doesn't have all that much. I guess they painted a couple bike lanes to get it.

Sorry, slight thread hijack there. Columbia, MO buses have bike racks. Kirksville, MO doesn't have buses. The public transit is a van.