Saturday, June 4, 2011

Caltrain Increases Bicycle Carrying Capacity

Good news for Bay Area commuters! Caltrain recently announced that all trains now have two "Bike Cars." Most trains will now hold 80 bicycles, while the rest will hold 48. According to this article at RedwoodCityPatch.com, Caltrain has increased its bicycle carrying capacity by more than 50% since 2008. 3600 cyclo-commuters use Caltrains on a typical weekday, representing 9% of total Caltrain ridership.

It is good to know that at least one West Coast metropolitan area "gets it." Encouraging commuters to try multi-modal transportation, such as bicycle/train combinations, will show people that they can get from the final train or bus station to their workplace in a few minutes. Now, if we could only convince officials in Southern California to adopt a similar attitude...