Bordercollie
Senior Member
What can you do? It's a union shop.
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- Thread starter drum118
- Start date
Willybru21
Active Member
Gonna need a couple more bike coaches on the Niagara train, there’s 182 bikes and the 3 bike coaches can only hold 80.
Bordercollie
Senior Member
Hook up some autoracks or those mail carrying box cars that Amtrak had that were rated for higher speeds. That should help. Considering these are parked for 7 months of the year it's kinda a waste. I guess they can carry strollers in the winter time. How many SUV children buggy's can a bike car hold?
It's good that people are using it. Keeps cars off the road.
crs1026
Superstar
Don’t you know it. I went cycling on the rail trail around Palgrave today. The count of parked cars with bike racks was pretty impressive.
But really, needing a car to go cycling is bizarre. As we densify, we need to be able to find spaces away from each other. We won’t all fit in the Don Valley.
- Paul
Northern Light
Superstar
The Toronto Trails strategy will be part of the answer; as will Cycle Tracks in the City, as will Bike Coaches on GO Trains, and implementation of the cycling routes for Rouge Park (on or adjacent to roads, not the through the valley interiors).
Lots more to do.
Edit to add, the Escarpment and Wine Country (both Niagara and PEC) are beautiful spots and ride-worthy, but cycling facilities on/adjacent to roads remain hit and miss; and the Waterfront Trail remains an unfinished dream.
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Bordercollie
Senior Member
But on top of the bike coach you can still have 2 bikes per regular car minus the accessibility coach right?
ShonTron
Moderator
On the older cars, you can have four bikes. The newer cars with the washroom on the lower level only allow two.
tsm1072
Active Member
I'd advocate for a lot of the commuter trains to have 1 bike coach. Currently you can't bring a bike on the train if commuting, which makes the last mile connection from the station to your destination difficult. Obviously you need the service levels so that trains have the capacity to dedicate a level to bikes. But in the long run, promoting a bike to the station and bike away from the station strategy would be beneficial in reducing the park and ride nature of GO.
JasonParis
Moderator
Pre-pandemic I think GO used to have a no bikes on trains during rush hours policy (similar to the TTC). Does that still apply?
ShonTron
Moderator
GO’s policy was slightly more permissive than the TTC’s – bikes allowed in the counter-peak direction except at Union Station. So if you got on a westbound train with a bike at Exhibition Station at 8 am, that is allowed. GO’s policy hasn’t changed, but I wonder if it should with the most crowded trains not on the traditional rush hours these days, but on weekends.
It’d be nice to have one bike coach on all trains where they’re allowed at all times. With two concourses now at Union, and new direct access to Bay and York Streets, the Union Station restriction shouldn’t be as big of a deal either these days.
drum118
Superstar
There are systems in Europe that don't allow bikes on during peak time. Then some charge a fare to bring the bike on X.
Never saw a transit system with bike rake on buses for them. Did see a number of intercity buses with rakes on the back of them
Allandale25
Senior Member
felix123
Active Member
Toronto could really use NYC's dedicated bus ramps right now. Makes no sense that GO has to compete with car traffic this way.
reaperexpress
Senior Member
For 3 GO bus routes, 2 of which are to be replaced by trains in the near future? I fully support extending the bus lane in front of the terminal, but dedicated flyover ramps would à la Port Authority Bus Terminal would be impossible to justify in our context.
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reaperexpress
Senior Member
The reason that most rail operators limit bikes on board (via a surcharge and/or time-of-day restrictions) is that bikes are very space-intensive. For the space of one paying customer with a bike, you could carry 2 or 3 paying customers without bikes.
For this reason, bringing a bike aboard cannot be scaled up to become a viable solution to the last-mile problem. The solution for the last mile at the home end is of course convenient, secure, weather-protected bicycle parking at all stations. The viable bicycle-based solutions for the last mile at the destination end are bikeshare and/or secure storage for a second bike. Union already has tons of bikeshare capacity, so I think that solution is pretty well covered. Union also has a secure indoor bicycle parking garage with 168 secure bicycle parking spaces, but the 48h maximum stay in the garage makes it impractical for storing a desination-end bike unless you commute downtown every single day. Increasing that maximum stay would make destination-end parking far more attractive by giving people the option to miss a couple days at work without getting a parking fine on their bike.
Toronto Bicycle Parking Garage Terms of Use
In order for any of these options to be successful, the station needs to be accessible via a safe and convenient bicycle network, but that's under the control of the municipalities, not GO itself.