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Neato! Here in Spokane, they tell me you need a special permit to use the bike rack. To obtain said permit, you have to go to AN ACTUAL CLASS held on Saturday mornings. Golly, there’s nothing else I’d rather do on a Saturday morning.
You know, ’cause they’re so hard to figure out how to use that you need an HOUR LONG CLASS to learn how. Gah!
Why does metro Seattle recommend loading the front-most rack first instead of the rack closer to the bus. The opposite makes more sense, and that’s what Trimet recommends.
WTF, Seattle?
“(For serious transit nerds only.)”
Hi!
Seriously, I love this kind of stuff.
@2 I think that policy ensures that people who use the section closest to the bus will have the strength necessary to unload it even if there’s another bike in front of it. Probably not an issue very often, but it’s a potential one, I guess.
I always assumed it was because a single bike in the inside slot wouldn’t have enough leverage to keep the rack from trying to fold shut.
It’s exciting to read something that actually credits by name the creative people who made something real — engineers, machinists and so forth — instead of whichever politician happened to be filling out the empty suit in the County office at the time. Bruce Hargin, Dick Huggett, Augusto Desimone, Jim King, Larry Whitney: we salute you!
It’s so that the driver can more easily see the front of the rack.
Nice write-up, but I was expecting something more detailed. There was no mention of the three-bike racks (and the problems surrounding them).
Also, it seems that the entire post on that site was just a copy/paste of http://transit.metrokc.gov/tops/bike/h-b…
Of course, it doesnt mention that a Gary Locke campaign volunteer (he was running for executive at the time) was bitching about there not being enough bike racks on buses, like all the time, and when Locke won, he remembered that guy, and ordered metro do it.
And this is news because?…. If anyone’s ever gone to the transit.metrokc.gov page all this information’s been there forever!
@2 why metro drivers want you to load the front rack first is so that they can see the bike. The nearer to the bus rack they cannot see the bike very easily.
Cute, cute, cute! Thank you, Erica!
The transit system was fitted with bicycle racks well before Metro came under County goverment. Metro was still a federated agency in 1992-93 when the grant was obtained from FTA. (It was Congestion Management Air Quality funding through FTA.) Locke did not actually play a role in the decision per Dan’s comment. This was a staff and management generated response fostered by reviewing customer and operator comments and complaints.
The SUN system in Phoenix had been testing a front-load rack for about 8 months on 3 routes with good results. It was a self-design but offered several of the design properties that Metro was seeking, as well as, the use response. (The initial Metro racks and system only averaged 13 to 16 trips per month. The SUN systme went fron a use of 6 trips in its first 2 months to around 80 some 8 months later.)
Metro sought a similar design and selected Sportworks because it met all the requirements and tests. 8 months later, the system realized about 300K bike related trips. Currently, the system realizes about 600K bike related trips annually.