If so, Sound Transit wants to hear from you! The agency is in the process of developing educational materials to encourage bicyclists to integrate bicycling with transit. They will be conducting brief phone interviews to learn from bicyclists who currently use transit about their commute habits and key considerations for integrating these modes.
If you’re willing to participate in a brief phone interview, please let Rebecca Roush of Sound Transit know.
Rebecca Roush
Sound Transit
Bicycle Program Coordinator
206-398-5058
rebecca.roush@soundtransit.org
Thanks!
I frequently use the bus as part as my bike commute. Especially during inclement weather.
Metro Transit is my backup plan for my 7 mile bike commute. If the weather’s particularly bad, I’ll bike to the bus stop, grab the bus and then bike the last strecth from the Federal Way Transit Center to my workplace.
My last several solo trips to Seattle involved bus/transit combos. I took the bus from Federal Way to Seattle and then biked down to the ferry for the 2011 Chilly Hilly. Likewise, I combined bike & bus for trips to the Captain’s Bash and the Awards Party that were part of the Group Health Commute Challenge. It helps that my workplace provides ORCA cards to bike commuters, but I’d still probably choose the bike/bus option. It’s less stress for me while on the bus (versus car), the bike is easier/cheaper to park than a car, and it’s easier to navigate dense city roads by bike.
And I’ve used transit to climb back up the Federal Way hill from Auburn or Puyallup when I didn’t feel like grinding it out on the pedals.
So far, I’ve not encountered a full bike carrier on a bus, but I do worry about that being a problem as others discover how well bike & bus work together.
Some one needs to understand the physics of putting the first bike on the front most position. If I want to launch an object with a catapult I use the longest moment arm. That is why bikes fly off of bike racks. I try never to put it on the outside when it is the only bike. It is a safety hazard to continue to promote that as the safest location for the first bike. As the Pierce County Transit driver said once (then load the first bike nearest the bus), if the driver doesn’t know where the front of his/her bus is then …, there was an implication of driving skills, which needs better training.
Also, this problem has cause Community transit operated Sound transit buses to remove one of the bike positions on their three position racks. But they have maintained the most dangerous “catapult” location on the outer most and removed the middle. So far I have yet to encounter a driver who can understand but I would think that the engineers who designed the racks would and should change their own information on where the safest first bike location for not launching them into the roadway should be.
I have done the bus/bike commute daily for 6 years.