At the Caltrain Joint Powers Board meeting today, Caltrain officially adopted its brand new Bicycle Access and Parking Plan. That’s nice, I’m sure the <1% of Caltrain customers that park a bike at a station are stoked. But the rest of us have reason to celebrate too!
Caltrain Executive Director Mike Scanlon announced that the Caltrain staff is, as of today, commencing a study to look into expanding/improving bicycle conditions on board. Specifically, he mentioned:
- possibly removing some seats to provide more space for bicycles
- streamlining the boarding/disembarking procedures for bicycles
- improving the on board storage of bicycles on the train
- providing information about bike space left on each train in advance of arrival
among other good ideas that I don’t remember. In addition, nearly everyone on the board also took the time to speak favorably about improving conditions for bikes on board, right now, in the short term. The several dozen public speakers were also overwhelmingly appreciative and hopeful that Caltrain is now starting to directly address the real problem – the currently dysfunctional state of bikes on board Caltrain.
In the bigger picture, this more than awesome. Caltrain heard our comments, saw the 2.6k+ signatures the SFBC collected and dropped in front of the board, and is listening! I’m sure this isn’t going to be the silver bullet that fixes all the bike+Caltrain problems, but this is certainly a step in the right direction.
Update:
The Chronicle has now published a story on this for tomorrow’s paper.
Sweet. Maybe they can put in folding seats to accommodate bikes at peak times, like they have for wheelchairs on the bus.