Unfortunately, the "Bike on Board. The New Way to Commute" promotion is for the Metrolink services in Southern California, USA. The public transit provider has added Bike Cars to accommodate more bikes on select trains as part of Metrolink's green initiatives program.
According to the guidelines the lower levels of the new Bike Cars are equipped with stalls that are designed to hold three bikes each. Bike Cars are identified by a yellow “Bike Car” decal on the side of the train or bike train wrap. Each train car is designed to hold three bikes. The special Bike Cars are designed to hold 18 bikes on the lower level.
Contrast the progressive US policy with the current Metrolink guidance on the Transport for Greater Manchester (TfGM) website.
Despite ongoing campaigning, Transport for Greater Manchester (TfGM) remains ambivalent (at best) and hostile (at worst) to integrating cycle carriage into the public transport network. Previous blog posts provide some of the detail of earlier (unsuccessful) lobbying campaigns.
So far, Greater Manchester's politicians and transport planners have demonstrated a striking lack of imagination with regards to integrating bicycles and public transport. TfGM Committee members (local councillors) and officers really do need to catch up with the growing number of European and North American cities who have successfully promoted the (less than revolutionary concept) of enabling people to travel with their bicycles and not just providing bike parking at bus, tram or train stations. What are people supposed to do when they get to their final stop or station and still have one (or more) miles to travel to their final destination ? Combining bikes and public transport is a really effective solution to the "problem of the last mile."
Other cities are leading the way...... Manchester needs to catch up, fast !
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