BART Ridership Up, Staff Digesting Bike Pilot Results, Draft Survey Results Out

BART’s historic Bike Pilot Project ended on August 31 after a successful trial.

Bicyclists loved it, of course.

But what has happened since August?

Many cyclists have been wondering….

 Here’s an update.                                                          

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BART is still processing the wealth of information and feedback it received last month. The  DRAFT survey results BART released Friday–which show that 90% of BART passengers did not experience problems during the bike pilot–are just one example. In August and September BART’s ridership has also jumped considerably. (BART averaged 345, 256 riders per weekday in FY 11, which ended June 30, 2011. In FY 12, ending June 30, 2012, 366,565  weekday riders rode BART. So far in September, daily weekday ridership has topped 400,000  four days in a row and 9 times overall. And ridership at Oakland’s 19th Street station–with no auto parking lot and no bike station–is up almost 10% over 2011.) The increased passenger load makes adding more bikes on trains more challenging–for now–with BART’s limited rolling stock.

         

BIKE PILOT RECAP

For the first time since BART began carrying passengers 40 years ago, BART ended its bike blackouts entirely for all five Fridays in August. For a limited trial period bicyclists were able to take their bikes on any BART train going in any direction, to or from any BART station, at any hour. 

Cyclists could board BART trains as long as there was sufficient room (just as at all other times) and all other bike-related rules  applied during the pilot: there was  no other special treatment for cyclists and bikes were not allowed on escalators. 

According to the June 8 memo from  BART’s impressive General Manager, Grace Crunican, the first BART GM to come from a transit background:

“The goal of the pilot program is to test the impact on passengers and train operations of having bikes in the stations and on the trains during peak periods. Allowing bikes on board at all times can make BART more convenient for people and potentially increase ridership. (Emphasis added.)

The pilot will be evaluated from an operational perspective, from the perspective of bike riders, and from the perspective of non-bike riding passengers…If the pilot demonstrates…potential to ease the restrictions…we will…bring suggested changes to the Board for discussion.” 

AFTER THE PILOT: BART PROCESSING NEW INFO 

The bike pilot yielded lots of information to the BART staff and to activists–just what they wanted. It also revealed several areas in which BART needs to improve bike access–whether or not the current BART policy  banning bicycles during peak commute periods is ended or modified.

The bike pilot will be discussed  at Monday’s meeting of the BART BIcycle Advisory Task Force (BBATF), 6-8 PM on October 1,  in Room 171 of  the Joseph P. Bort Metro Center at 101 Eighth Street in Oakland. It’s across the street from Lake Merritt BART. (Bike parking is available inside.)

BART is already modifying its older cars, removing “wind screens” to make them more accessible for all passengers. The staff is also exploring changes in signage, new passenger courtesy campaigns (to reduce rider conflicts), improved station access, better bike security, and possibly modifying the bike blackout periods themselves. Until BART staff is certain that changes can be implemented safely and successfully, they are unwilling to recommend new policies or procedures to the board.

Look for a full report to the BART Board on the August Bike Pilot in November or December, with implementation of the board’s decisions to follow,perhaps in 2013. 

BART’s improved welcome to cyclists has been decades in coming. The August pilot project joins BART’s new 2012 bike plan, improved bike security efforts, new bike stations, and reduced blackout hours, among other progress. Some BART staffers still resist or oppose increased bike access on BART trains, but the agency has bike advocates on the inside, too.

FULL DISCLOSURE: I have represented Alameda County on the BART Bicycle Advisory Task Force (BBATF) since 2011. My comments here are solely my own: they do not represent the official or unofficial views of BART, the BBATF, or any of its members.

Look for more about Bikes on BART in this space soon.

If you have any local transportation news, questions, tips, or comments, please contact us or leave a comment.

How AC Transit Stepped Up During the June 14 Fire and BART Outage

The AC Transit District quickly stepped into the breach on Thursday, June 14,  to fill the void left when BART’s transbay service was shut down due to the arson-caused  fire in West Oakland. (KGO-TV’s story that night runs 9:21. Or read this from the Pleasanton Weekly.)

BART crews work to repair fire-damaged tracks and wiring June 14 in West Oakland. Photo courtesy of KGO-TV.

“We first got word…at around 3 o’clock in the morning. AC Transit responded almost immediately…we eventually placed 108 extra buses into transbay service and made 150 additional transbay trips during the course of the day,” according to AC Transit Media Affairs Manager Clarence Johnson.

AC Transit carried 23,410 transbay passengers on June 14—despite heavy traffic congestion on the Bay Bridge. (Compare this to their normal weekday transbay ridership of 10,750  passengers on 500 trips. Not bad for a fire drill.)

“We were constantly changing our response to the crisis throughout the day. Planners were redeploying buses on the fly, constantly changing our responses based on where the headaches were occurring,” Johnson told me recently. “AC Transit was gratified that we were able to respond the way we did.” 

AC Transit had help from other agencies during the BART outage, too. “For the first time in my memory, we were able to pull in extra buses from…VTA, Solano Transit, Tri-Delta, and one other transit agency,”  AC Transit Director-At-Large H. E. Christian “Chris” Peeples told me. “The problem is that there’s no way you can replace (BART’s transbay capacity) with just bus service…AC Transit doesn’t have (2,000) extra buses just sitting around…Overall, I’m quite pleased with how quickly we reacted, getting at least some additional service out there,” Peeples added.

AC Transit spokesperson Johnson called it “a very good training exercise for a number of our systems…we were continually updating what was going on with 511 and NextBus, but any of those systems will experience a time lag.”

Could AC Transit have done more during the one-day transportation crisis?

According to Director Chris Peeples,“With our own dedicated lane on the bridge we could have doubled our throughput (of 150 round-trips), but to do that we’d have to get help from Caltrans and the CHP.”

Information about transit options was hard to come by during BART’s outage, denying web users access to up-to-date information on transit alternatives and bus redeployments. When I headed for downtown Oakland that Thursday morning—to the BART Board meeting—NextBus information about the 51A was off by almost 10 minutes and local buses were packed. The 511.org system was also slowed by the sudden crush of users.

AC Transit is already working to improve its ability to provide timely information during a transit crisis, according to an email I received Sunday from Elsa Ortiz, President of the AC Transit District Board of Directors:

”AC Transit’s website…operated much slower than expected due to the heavy traffic. When the CPU utilization nears 100 percent (as it did for much of that Thursday morning) it is as good as down…the number of calls overburdened the system, preventing many riders from connecting to our website.

”We are working on improving the website…we need to accelerate our efforts to review log files and configurations. We will be replacing maps and schedules and buying parts for the website which have the oldest and most troublesome code.

”Rest assured that fixing our response system is a priority and we’ll keep on top of it until the results are what our riders expect.”

How was your transbay commute June 14? Take our poll or share your stories in the comments. 

If you have news, questions, gripes, tips, or comments about any aspect of local transportation, we’re all ears. Contact us.

Read Jon Spangler’s bio here.

BART’s August Bike Pilot: Lifting Restrictions, Improving Access

This is Part II of a series on the draft BART bicycle plan.

As I wrote in Part I, there are significant problems with the April draft of BART’s new bike plan, which was presented to the BART Board of Directors June 14–the same day BART transbay service was shut down by the fire in west Oakland.

The agenda, complete meeting packet, and video of their meeting are all here.

BART is literally in the middle of dramatically improving system-wide bike access in two ways: first, by significantly revising its draft bike plan and second, by conducting a first-ever Pilot Program to Test Removal of Bikes-on-Board Restrictions.The August 2012 pilot project is a major new initiative by  BART’s impressive General Manager, Grace Crunican.

BART will end its bike blackouts entirely during a limited trial period on the five Fridays in August. It will look like this:

1.  There will be no bike blackouts at all on the five Fridays in August.

2. Cyclists can board any BART train in any direction—as long as there is sufficient room.

3. Cyclists will be allowed on all station platforms—including San Francisco’s Embarcadero station and the 12^th Street and 19^th Street stations in Oakland—during the trial.

4. All other bike-related rules will apply during the pilot: there will be no escalator access or other special treatment for cyclists.

According to the June 8 memo from the General Manager to BART’s Directors:

“The goal of the pilot program is to test the impact on passengers and train operations of having bikes in the stations and on the trains during peak periods. Allowing bikes on board at all times can make BART more convenient for people and potentially increase ridership.

The pilot will be evaluated from an operational perspective, from the perspective of bike riders, and from the perspective of non-bike riding passengers…If the pilot demonstrates…potential to ease the restrictions…we will begin the process with… our bicycle and access committees and bring suggested changes to the Board for discussion.” 

(As a matter of BART policy, passengers with luggage, baby strollers, or wheelchairs are never excluded as a user group from rush hour BART trains: only bicyclists are banned during peak commute periods.)

Some BART passengers are wary of having bikes on all BART trains. Some wheelchair users  fear that hordes of cyclists could take up all the wheelchair spaces on crowded BART trains, but usurping wheelchair spaces is illegal under the Americans with Disabilities Act and against BART rules.

(BART’s new Bombardier cars will  feature three doors and separate bike and wheelchair spaces.)

Supporters of ending the bike blackouts and the pilot program respond that this Bikes-on-BART rule is always in effect:

“Regardless of any other rule, bikes are never allowed on crowded cars. Use your good judgment and only board cars that can comfortably accommodate you and your bicycle. Hold your bike while on the trains.” 

It may seem obvious that everyone is helped by “good judgment” and common courtesy when sharing crowded BART stairways, elevators, platforms, and trains.

Discussions of improved bike access at the BART Bicycle Advisory Task Force (BBATF) have emphasized the need for all BART patrons to be considerate and respectful of each other—especially when we are packed in like sardines–with or without bikes, luggage, or other objects in tow.

Dramatic revisions are already underway to BART’s problematic first draft of the bike plan.

The revisions are reflected in the bike plan update offered to the BART Board last Thursday by Manager of Access Programs Steve Beroldo. (BBATF member  Mariana Parreiras, who served on the External Technical Advisory Team (ETAC) for the bike plan, was also scheduled to update BART’s Directors, but she was unable to reach the Oakland meeting from San Francisco.)

According to Beroldo, BART’s point person for bike programs, “We’ve reviewed over 200 public comments and about half of them want to see an end to the bike blackouts.”

BART has dramatically increased its consideration of bike access issues late in the bike plan process under the direction of BART’s General Manager—apparently just a few weeks ago. 

The revised bike plan will recommend thorough and fair consideration of both ending the bike blackouts and allowing bikes to use escalators. Steve Beroldo promises that the security of BART’s bike parking racks, as well as the BART Police Department‘s current efforts to combat bike theft, will receive more emphasis in the revised plan.

A companion implementation plan—as yet unfunded and without a timeframe, however—will cover the specifics of bike facilities and include more opportunities for local public participation.

BART’s dramatic bike policy changes are historic–and they are still underway. Many staffers inside the agency support these moves. They are great news for Bay Area bicyclists and for those who want BART and other transportation agencies to be more responsive to rider needs. Stay tuned…

FULL DISCLOSURE: I have represented Alameda County on the BART Bicycle Advisory Task Force (BBATF) for about a year. As always, my comments here are solely my own and they do not represent the official or unofficial views of BART, the BBATF, or any of its members.

Look for more about Bikes on BART and the BART Bicycle Plan, coming soon.

If you have news, questions, tips, or comments about any aspect of local transportation, contact us or leave a comment.

Is BART’s New Bike Plan Missing Links?

This is Part I of a series on the draft BART bicycle plan. The draft plan will be presented to BART’s Board of Directors at their meeting on Thursday, June 14, at 9:00 a.m.

The San Francisco Bay Area Rapid Transit District (BART) first carried public passengers on September 11, 1972. Bikes, however, were only allowed on selected BART trains—and then only with permits—on January 1, 1975, following a concerted effort led by the young East Bay Bicycle Coalition (EBBC). This breakthrough put BART and bikes on the March 1975 cover of BICYCLING! magazine.

Four decades later, the 14,000 bicyclists using BART every day—roughly 4.1 percent of all BART patrons—still face barriers. Many cyclists hope that the new draft BART Bicycle Plan: Modeling Access to Transit will improve cyclists’ access to BART.

BART has worked hard—and successfully—in recent years to attract more bicyclists by installing bike stations, bike lockers, and other improvements: from 1998 to 2008 the number of cyclists using BART jumped 69 percent while system ridership rose 28 percent overall.

The plan’s ambitious goal is “…to double BART bicycle access, to 8 percent of all trips, by 2022.” To double the number of cyclists (the bicycle mode share) on BART, the draft suggests revisiting the ban on escalator use, adding new signage, improving bike access at and around BART stations, and expanding secure bike parking. The plan also recommends installing wider fare gates at all station entrances, and better lighting in bike parking areas outside the fare gates. It also includes the first version of a Bicycle Investment Tool for planning bike facilities.

Compared to BART’s 2002 bike plan, the 2012 draft plan has intentionally “less traditional structure and contents.” Unlike its predecessor, the current draft seems light on hard data and specifics.

What do cyclists say they need from BART? Cyclists’ top needs for years have been ending the commute hour blackout periods, preventing bike theft, and allowing bikes on all station escalators and platforms. (Their responses to BART’s surveys and focus groups are in Appendices A and C.)

The current draft plan’s three biggest omissions seem to be:

1. Not considering an end to the bike blackouts. Even discussing an end to blackouts in the bike plan was considered contrary to BART policy by senior managers until about a month ago, even though cyclists have asked for an end to that ban for decades. (See Recommendation 4.2, p. 33.)
2. A serious discussion of BART’s frequent bike thefts. It also omits the BART Police Department’s significant and expanding efforts to reduce thefts. (Daily BART bike commuters who lock their bikes in a BART station rack face a roughly 50 percent chance of having it stolen over the course of a year.)
3. BART held no public hearings on the completed draft plan after it was released at the end of April and the public comment period was less than a month long. Did BART provide for sufficient public comment on the plan?

The draft’s recommended “persuasive programs” are marketing campaigns aimed at getting more people to ride their bikes to BART. But BART cyclists and advocates I talk to cite the draft bike plan’s shortcomings and wonder: will BART be willing—or able—to remove the remaining barriers to bicycle commuters who want to use BART? How can BART reach its 8 percent goal without more substantive policy changes—like increasing the security of its bike parking areas or ending the blackouts?

There may be hope for bikes on BART: revisions now underway to the current draft will reflect many of the 200-plus comments BART has already received and reviewed, and half of those support ending the bike blackouts. And a companion implementation plan—as yet unfunded and without a timeframe, however—will cover the specifics of bike facilities and include more public participation.

What do you think about BART’s new plan? Read the draft—and the appendices—and let BART know at bikes@bart.gov, or attend the June 14 board meeting and tell BART in person.

I’ll discuss the many hopeful recent developments on the BART bike plan in Part II of this series on Friday. Stay tuned…

FULL DISCLOSURE: I have represented Alameda County on the BART Bicycle Advisory Task Force (BBATF) for about a year. As always, my comments here about BART are solely my own, however. They do not represent the official or unofficial views of BART, the BBATF, or any of its members.