— By Kevin Montgomery (@kevinmonty) |
BART's rush hour(s) bike blackouts remain one of the most annoying obstacles for any cyclist trying to get to Oakland (excluding The Bay itself, I guess). And after two fairly successful pilot periods of lifting the blackouts—the latest trial showing 77% of BART riders support allowing bikes on BART at all time—many in the cycling community had hoped the BART Board of Directors would vote last night to end the ban permanently.
Instead, the BART Board has remained squeamish about allowing bikes, fearing they might scuff some pants or their owner's will be rude and inconsiderate or something. So the Board has authorized a third, five month trial period beginning in July. If bikers obey the following rules without significant incident, BART will then look towards ending the no-bikes rule outright:
Starting July 1, bikes will be allowed on trains, but during peak commute hours (7 am to 9 am and 4:30 pm and 6:30 pm) bikes are not allowed to board the first three cars of any train to provide options for those who want to avoid bikes altogether.
Other safety rules relating to bikes will still apply such as: no bikes are ever allowed in the first train car at any time, bikes are never allowed on crowded trains, bicyclists must yield priority seating to seniors and those with disabilities, bikes are not to block doorways or aisles and are not allowed on escalators.
Sensible stuff. And we're sure cyclists won't suddenly start mowing over grannies to board trains (that's only something we do while debarking from the Google Bus, thank you very much), we're confident this will go well.
Comments (12)
I am all for bikes on BART and I know a few bad apples can give all bikers a bad name but the rule that bikes are not allowed to board crowded cars is all but ignored. I’ve been jammed against bike wheels more often than I can remember coming into SF on the PTS Bay line. Also since theses lines are nearly always crowded during rush hour, I am not really sure what lifting this ban does…
Seconded.
I think sometimes people forget that “a few bad apples” is all that it takes to ruin the entire barrel.
When is bart gonna grow up and run al night,thats the real question…
Well Bart did give an explanation for that. If they are going to run trains without enough people on them, they choose to give rides to the grownups who go to work early in the morning, rather than the club scene people.
Because we would want “club people” to be “out at night,” “drinking,” and “misbehaving.” This town is so damned “grown-up.”
only the last one or two cars should be for bikes, and bikes only, all the time
Wow, thanks for linking to that Google Bus essay. It’s beautifully written!
Oh my goodness! Amazing article dude
maybe they could enforce some of the old rules before they start making new ones.
avoiding “crowded trains” is pretty difficult–every train is crowded if they don’t run enough trains to meet demand!
not to mention the guy blithely iphoning in the one place in the car the bike is supposed to go.