The SFBC is holier than Caltrain

The battle for bike capacity on Caltrain rages on. The SFBC's Bikes on Board sub-committee is collecting petition signatures to demand that Caltrain spend their money and energy to increase capacity on board, before greenwashing itself by putting in a weak plan that is going to solve the capacity problem with Bike Racks!



Hint to Caltrain - there is NOBODY out there who is thinking "I'd bike to the Caltrain station and take the Caltrain, except there's no bike rack, so I drive!" Lack of bike racks does not stop the 100's of people who lock their bikes all over the place at Palo Alto. Note - these "customers" aren't really top end users of Caltrain given the amount of those bikes that are abandoned. Now, given the state of PA station, more bike racks and lockers would be excellent, but that would mostly move bikes from fences to racks, not move bikes from the train to racks.



Lockers are great - have a bike on both ends. For example, I could bike to the train station, valet park my bike at Warm Planet and then take the train to where my bike is in the locker at Lawrence. Unless of course I miss the train to Lawrence and the next train stops at Mountain View only. Maybe I can get a locker at MV too. And one at PA for when I run errands there. In other words, lockers have only so much value. And the people for whom they are a great solution - already rent lockers.



I understand that this is a tough problem - but it's not an impossible one. Caltrain can say that this is the best bikes/trains combo out there, and they're probably right. That doesn't mean it cannot be improved. But listening to the Caltrain staff discuss the issue I feel they prepped for this job as Mayor of Wasilla Alaska.



Today (Sept 4) I'm going to hang out at Mountain View Caltrain and collect petition signatures from 4:30-6 PM.



If anyone feels like helping gather signatures feel free to drop me a line, certainly we could get you copies of blank petitions to load up for us.