All Community Transit buses are equipped with two-bike bicycle racks. We tried out a version of a three-bike rack a few years ago but had issues with the safety of people loading too close to passing traffic. When revenues improve, high capacity bike racks may be one of the issues we look at again.
Bike use on buses has grown over the years, partly thanks to promotions such as Bike to Work Day and Month. Swift bus rapid transit’s three-bike interior racks were designed by our own mechanics. Those easy-to-use racks are very popular, with about 6 percent of all Swift riders bringing along a bike, according to recent data. Considering Swift has about 100,000 boardings a month, that’s a lot of bikes!
About three years ago, around the time Swift started up, Community Transit changed its policy to allow riders to bring bikes on board all buses if the racks were full, if it was safe to do so (meaning the bus was not so full a bike in the aisle would not potentially harm anyone) and if the rider maintained control of the bike at all times. The driver has final say to allow bikes on board.
April 2012 statistics show that bike use on buses is robust across our entire service area.
Routes 201 and 202 between Smokey Point and Lynnwood had about 900 bikes each that month. Although the percentage of overall passengers using bikes looks small, take into account that we have capacity for 40+ passengers on each bus, but only 2+ bikes. Perhaps a better indicator is that there is a bike on almost every trip, on average.
Routes 115 and 116 also have robust bike ridership, about 500 bikes each. Both those routes serve Edmonds Community College.
While Route 424 does well among commuter routes with 30 bikes on 84 trips, that makes some sense since it serves UW. However, Route 422 has the highest ratio of bikes-to-trips with an average of one bike on every trip. That route is also the longest in our system, traveling between Stanwood and downtown Seattle.
A number of north county routes have high bike-to-passenger ratios: Routes 201, 202, 240, 270, 275 and 280. Could be that bus riders in those more rural areas have further to travel to get to or from their bus stops and a bike helps them get there.
Remember, Friday, May 18, is National Bike to Work Day. We hope to see you out there!
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The important thing is that the number of people riding bikes is raising here. Let's celebrate a world more sustainable!
ReplyDeleteI think I might buy a bike and start riding it instead of taking the bus...I have had more busses not show up in the past 3 months then I have in the past 7 years while riding CT busses.
ReplyDeleteI asked one of my regular drivers about this and she told me they don't have enough drivers to fill the work needed, mabey this guy on the blog Martin or some of the other administration people could learn how to drive and get out from behind those desks...after all this is a transit company not a managment company.
I'm not happy
Or...instead of laying off drivers, lay off some admin people. Does CT really need SIX HR managers when they have cut the number of drivers? NO! Last I checked, CT was in the SERVICE industry yet they cut service and drivers? Wake up CT!
DeleteCan you get rid of those crappy plastic bike racks that are on some of the buses? The arms are hard to pull and the front bike leans forward and looks like it will fall. Give us the sturdy metal.
ReplyDelete