Show Some Love to Bikes Metro North

The Connecticut Post ran an editorial today in favor of greater accommodation of bicycles on the Metro North. Biking to work is not much of a reality in Fairfield County. Unfriendly road conditions are only part of the equation. More pressing is the fact that many of us don't live close enough to our jobs to do a realistic bike commute. Using the train though as an intermediary in a bike from home-to-station, station-to-work commute is a possibility for many. The Metro North, as the Connecticut Post points out, doesn't seem to agree.

Metro-North Railroad doesn't make it easy for the bicycle-inclined, keeping the two-wheelers off peak-hour trains. And when they are allowed, there's no storage to speak of, so riders must stand them in the vestibule, forcing everyone else to walk around them and inviting serious grumbling.

I think this is a great suggestion.

But there are other ways. In California, for instance, Caltrain service south of San Francisco features front cars with no seats but plenty of bike parking. It shouldn't be hard to find old cars around here that have outlived their usefulness for regular passengers but could be gutted for use by cyclists.

One car for bikes during peak hours, that's not asking much. We're giving booze a car to itself.

No word yet on whether California will make Olde Time Stamford guy's head explode in quite the same way as New York. Someone should float that over at Topix and see.