Taking Bikes on Metro Requires Courtesy—So Please Learn Some!

The growing number of bikes on Metro speaks volumes of this nation's economy, but the broad scope of that developing topic is one I shall avoid—for now. For now, and before the problem becomes epidemic, I wish to speak of the burgeoning bad behaviour exhibited by some folk with bicycles on Metro.

Let me first state that I am an advocate of using bicycles. The car-loving culture of Los Angeles is one to which I have long been familiar: my father usta race in Riverside (alongside Richard petty, no less) in the late 1960s. He built his own race cars owing to our moving round the world. (The military would not transport them.) And I frequently drive across the continent in other folks' vehicles. Nevertheless, I own no motor vehicle nor have I for well over a decade.

Unfortunately, a bicycle takes up the space of three people on a Metro train. Other California towns are wrestling with the problem and yet while they are far ahead of L.A. they are still embattled. At least one local politician has offered a solution—a ludicrous one—while Metro has done little to accommodate bicycles. Despite some bicycle-based law-breaking (let's see LAPD hand out a citation to THIS blowhard!) and hypocrisy by at least one other local pol, this problem is one that needs to be addressed quickly lest it become this bad. I have some ideas about how to handle this, but until I draw a decent cheque from Metro, I will leave it to Metro CEO Roger Snoble to make good on his fat salary to figure out the problem. We sure will not learn any manners from these jerks:

For the rest of you, perhaps getting rid of that desire to impress strangers with the largest and most expensive and/or tricked-out bike would be step one. Step two would be a folding bike.

In the meantime, here are some videos by which those with bicycles on Metro might learn how to ride the trains.

Of course, like a toy store that makes one wade through the mediocre to get to the stuff yer kids have "seen on TV," so, too, have we kept the best of the worst for the last of this post:

 

Let us find a solution to this problem before bicyclists are publicly perceived thusly.

-BusTard
 

Comments

[RideTHISbike.com]

Funny you suggested folding bikes; I just published a story about a grant Metro got to encourage folding bikes on transit...

http://ridethisbike.com/2008/10/folding-bikes-mass-transit.html

Regards,
Larry Lagarde
RideTHISbike.com

[BusTard]

Nice piece, Larry. let us hope that Metro's study of folding bikes and incentives for those with them will lead to an actual incentive programme on Metro trains and busses.

[Mole]

Instead of videotaping, couldn't you have just told them to move aside?

[browne]

Mole,

I understand your point, but telling people to move isn't going to solve the problem. People do tell people who are being rude to move, but in general rude people don't get it. If BusTard told a person to move, they might move temporarily to get out of the way for him and him only, but we're trying to point out a consistent and very prevalent problem on the train of people acting like they are in their car.

I have taken my bike on the train and I am able to put my bike in a spot that is not blocking the door OR I wait until rush hour is over before I get on the train OR I lock my bike up at a station.

Why should people have to tell grown people to move? If people are squeezing by you and you see you are blocking how do you not get you are in the way.

Videotaping people and showing why this isn't ok is a bigger act and will help more people than you telling people to stop being assholes on an individual basis.

Maybe an older woman might be too intimidated to tell a person to move, a kid might not feel ok telling a grown person to move, a person might not have a strong grasp of the language and might not have the ability to tell a person to move. And you know some people on bikes who block people know this. They know that the majority of people are too intimidated to tell them to get out of the way, which makes their selfish act even more disturbing. When I see BusTard telling people to move do you know what they think, they think he is being rude and aggressive and look as if he is going to rob them or something, so just him telling people to move isn't going to do it. It is not going to get this select group to do anything differently.

But maybe if we show this tape and we show that this is not ok, maybe other people who are hit and bumped and miss their stop owing to blocked doors will get the courage to demand that they be treated with respect, because many people don't get that that they have the right to get on a train and not be bumped and disrespected. Maybe Metro will do something like add a car to the trains, so that people on bikes can have a section. Or add more train service. Removing seats in my opinion is absolute bullshit.

Browne

[BusTard]

Mole,

Of course I could have asked them to move.

And if I try really, Really, REALLY hard, I can also be on every Metro train car at all times so as to always ask every person who happens to be blocking a tramway to please move.

But I opted to be selfish and videotape a few examples to present so as to get on with doing other things. I hope you do not mind me wanting to do other things than trying really, Really, REALLY hard to be on every Metro train car at all times so as to always ask every person who happens to be blocking a tramway to please move.

[David Galvan]

Yes, bikes take up extra room on public transit. Yes, bike riders and multi-modal commuters should make every effort to minimize the room they take up and try not to interfere with other riders.

However, 2 of your videos show people with bikes doing nothing wrong.

Your 3rd video shows someone waiting on the platform for a subway train. Their bike is just sitting in one place. What are they doing wrong? The platform is uncrowded; no one seems to be inconvenienced by his bike; and, short of the bike not being there at all, what could he possibly have done with his bike that would have met with your approval? Moved it a few feet to the left, where it is equally unobtrusive? Or to the right? What's the problem?

Your 5th video actually shows someone making efforts to get their bike out of people's way. I agree that ideally that bike should have been kept away from the door in the first place, but I also know it's not always easy or possible to do that. There could have been people standing in the location where the person's bike would have been more unobtrusive, and after those people got off, that space was now available, allowing the cyclist to move the bike into that location. You respond by implying (in your subtitles), that you hope we have another war so that the youth of america are thinned out. That's some fairly ugly sarcasm on your part.

I've taken my folding bike onboard the red and blue lines, and here's what often happens: As the train arrives, you have two choices to minimize your obtrusiveness: 1) Be first on the train at your door. Getting on first will allow you to immediately move your bike to the opposite door (which mostly doesn't open in a given train direction, as all the stops are on the same side except possibly the very first at NoHo), which will allow you to keep your bike out of the way of boarding and disembarking passengers. The down side is that while waiting on the platform you will be standing with your bike in front of many other passengers who may see you as an obstacle and try like heck to get around you first.

2.) Be last on the train at your door. The upside to this is that you're not in anyone's way while getting on the train, since you let eveyone else get on first, and then walk on at the last minute. The down side is now you have boarded a train that is already crowded, and it might be near impossible to get your bike to the non-opening-door side of the train, so now you will be an obstacle when the doors open at the next stop.

A partial solution to this is Garcetti's proposal (which you mock as ludicrous in your post) to remove seats in certain cars of the metro rail system. This will make more room for wheelchairs and bikes, and won't necessarily allow less room for pedestrians, as they may stand in the open floorspace as well if there are no bikes or wheelchairs.

Another partial solution is folding bikes, which take half (or less) the space of a regular bike, and can be placed in corners out of people's way. That's what I use. Just last tuesday, I got onto a crowded redline train. I had taken option 2 above, since there was already a crowd of people on the platform and I didn't want to force my way in front of them. When I got onboard, though, no one was willing to move so I could get my bike to a less obtrusive place, so I just folded the bike right there and rested the wheels on my toes. I don't mind that at all, and standing with my folding bike, I probably take up the floorspace of 1.5 people. Others on the train didn't seem to have a problem getting by me, and at the next stop when people shuffled around, I was able to get my bike to a corner near a non-opening door.