Your city buses with bike racks?

[Grog]

Good to know all this. Any more locations?
There is something that North America DOES do better in terms of cycling infrastructure: that's bike racks on local buses.

Seriously. We were in some cycling-intensive European cities and there were hardly any or none. But then some of the cities use streetcars more heavily than buses. Still buses are used in their areas out in the 'burbs for some cities.

I do like the bike racks on buses quite a bit as a concept... but as another poster mentioned, I never expect that I will be able to put my bike on one of them.

Just a wild guess, but I'd say that the distances are usually shorter in Europe (because of increased density), thus bi-modal commuting is much less of a necessity or of a demand made by commuters. Also, in a lot of cities where lanes are extremely narrow, I think it would be quite a bit more challenging to drive buses with a rack on!

[Groundhog]

There is a 2-bike rack on every city bus in Tucson, AZ, and I never count on being able to use one because they're so often full!

Seattle and suburbs are like that...they're often full.

I use the bus for part of my commute. I ride to the express bus flyer stop, put the bike on the front and then ride the remaining few blocks to my office. On the way home I reverse, but get off earlier and ride a longer distance home. My commute is 17 miles in very heavy traffic. The trail goes part-way but I could never commute if I had to ride the whole way. The bus makes it do-able.

DH and I are talking about riding our bikes to the bus, getting on the bus and going downtown, then getting on a ferry and going on a vacation tour...all without using a car!

[crazycanuck]

I often wonder why Perth doesn't add racks to the buses & brought it up at a sust transport meeting I went to this week. The Minister for Planning, A greens member (pushing for light rail) and a few others were there & so I asked.

I don't get why it's so hard...

[laura*]

Santa Cruz county California has a triple rack on the front of every bus. They do get used heavily - certain routes at certain times of the day are often at capacity. They've had racks for a long time - perhaps 20 years ago they had a four position rack on the back of the buses used on a few routes.

Santa Clara county California has double racks on probably every bus. They get used sporadically - but many of the routes run quite frequently. The light rail and heavy rail also both allow bikes.

[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.

[shootingstar]

Crazycanuck, maybe this thread should inspire/give evidence what Perth is missing out and shouldn't resist. After all, one more transport mode would be good if it gets too hot at times where you are with bike.

This videoclip is from bus bike rack manufacturer. After bidding process, TransLink, our transit authority chose them for the 2 bike rack.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BLNmXdzTQDI

Europeans may not know how advantageous it is to have bike racks on buses. Some will be coming to Vancouver in future. (More about that later.. ) I'm thinking of countries like Spain, Greece, etc. where it's hotter, terrain is hillier, just would put off alot of locals.

[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.