The newly-formed Caltrain workgroup seeks ideas from SVBC members and the local cycling community on creative, practical ideas for increasing Caltrain's bike capacity in the near term. Please offer your suggestions as responses to this post!
The group's mission is to "Advise the SVBC Board on feasible, near-term ways to improve the Caltrain system for passengers who take their bikes aboard trains with special attention to the “bumping” problem. Develop a list of possible improvements. Meet with Caltrain staff to: represent bicyclists needs, understand Caltrain!s plans and constraints, and work collaboratively to develop alternatives and assess what is feasible."
Please offer your suggestions as responses to this post. We'd like to hear ideas from as many different people as possible, so please share this around to friends and community members.
Please keep the ideas in the spirit outlined above: creative, feasible, short-term improvements.
Ideas collected using this forum post will be included for discussion at the group's first meeting on Wednesday, December 3, so please offer your comments promptly!
We'll continue to take input after that, of course, but the sooner we get your idea, the more helpful it will be.
Thanks!
alison
November 30, 2008 - 6:10pm
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The idea of hanging bikes
The idea of hanging bikes from hooks suspended from the ceiling of the train cars seems pretty obvious. The footprint per bike is then more or less a wheel diameter long rather than a wheelbase long. Is there any reason why hanging rather than horizontal strapping of bikes isn't considered? I have a vague notion that bikes are hung vertically on the Alameda Commuter Express but can't find an online reference at the moment. Clearly hanging may be less convenient for smaller, weaker passengers, but those folks already have trouble carrying their bikes on and off the train.
benrandom
November 30, 2008 - 9:26pm
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Hanging bikes is a good idea
Hanging bikes is a good idea but not as compact as Caltrain's existing system. This is because Caltrain's "stacking" system means there is no space between bike frames, whereas if you hang bikes individually on hooks then you need space in order to remove them.
Now I'm not one to criticize without offering my own view, so..
How about a bar that sticks out from the wall where you could slide your front wheel onto a hanging stack with the handlebars alternating left and right? That would have the compactness of the stacking system and also the small footprint of the hanging system. Might not make it past a crash test though.
Or, for Bombardier trains (the real crux of the issue), a second car-trunk style bike rack above the existing racks?
-Ben
alexisg
November 30, 2008 - 9:16pm
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Thanks Alison. I think the
Thanks Alison. I think the issue with this is that it spreads the bikes out horizontally to a handlebar-width or more (I recall this from the BoC committee discussions), but it's surely something we should check into again.
alison
December 1, 2008 - 7:49pm
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Maybe I'm having trouble
Maybe I'm having trouble picturing the situation, but if hooks were arranged overhead in a staggered fashion, with interleaved rows, wouldn't it be possible to achieve greater density than with pure stacking? I'm convinced that the answer somehow is to make use of the vertical space in the bike car without creating a safety or speed-of-loading problem.
Suppose instead of fixed hooks we had giant carabiners on ropes that attached to pulleys. That might be secure enough to raise a bike to the ceiling of the car. What the system needs is a way to load onto carabiners on one level and then use the pulley to transport to a storage level. A third level could be used for unloading. Or the hook could transfer to a number-addressed rack, like at the dry cleaner . . . but that would be expensive!
alexisg
December 2, 2008 - 2:20pm
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A very important thing to
A very important thing to keep in mind is that no change in the type of stacking solution is likely to be "near term". All changes in stacking type are most likely 2014 at the earliest (unless they could be retrofitted to old cars - I am unsure of the status on that but given FRA regs I wouldn't be optimistic) and may be later by now (I can't recall if the 2014 delivery cars were already ordered or not but I think they were). We are looking for solutions that can be implemented ideally this year or perhaps within a year!
Policy and logistics changes or simpler things like seat removal is what we are really looking for.
Mark
December 2, 2008 - 8:47pm
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Unless all other passenger
Unless all other passenger cars are usually filled to capacity on most routes, the obvious (though possibly expensive) solution is to convert more standard cars into bicycle cars. CalTrain correctly argues that bike cars hold fewer passengers than standard ones do. However, if the trains aren't being filled, then this is a meaningless argument.
Another possibility is to allow passengers to stand, as BART does, when all seats are filled. For bikers and other passengers who are only traveling a few stations down the line, this would be a minor inconvenience.
maiki
December 2, 2008 - 11:24pm
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Do they not allow people to
Do they not allow people to stand in the bicycle cars? I have stood on Caltrain plenty of times, but I have never been told anything about it. I was, of course, on packed trains with a lot of other people standing as well.
j282
December 10, 2008 - 9:37pm
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Does Caltrain have enough
Does Caltrain have enough bike cars to schedule double bike cars for commute hour train sets? Also, do are they able to consistently schedule tow bike cars at peak hours?
alexisg
December 12, 2008 - 12:38pm
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Jim - the party line on those
Jim - the party line on those up to now has been no and no. But I think that idea has great potential and we will be pushing for bike demand to be taken into account in creating trainsets, ideally resulting in double-bike-car trainsets on the rush-hour trains that need them.
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