Assigning buses with bike racks randomly to those routes basically cancels
any purpose it might serve except weekend bike trips.
Thanks for your rant, I think Metro should be challenged on this.
-----Original Message-----
From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]]
Sent: Wednesday, April 18, 2001 1:31 PM
To: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Subject: re: Marsh View Hearing
>Date: Wed, 18 Apr 2001 09:09:36 -0500
>From: "Arthur Ross" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
>Subject: Re: Marsh View Hearing
>This is the development directly behind the Post Office on Milwaukee
>Street, across from Woodman's. Take any bus that goes to the East
>Transfer Point and you can walk from there. Put your bike on the bus
>rack, and you can ride to 2 - 3 blocks from the Transfer Point to the
>meeting. Bring your lights and you can ride home.
>Arthur Ross
Only if those buses don't happen to be 700-series buses. It's going to be
the
anniversary of Bikes on Buses in one month or so, and yet Metro still has an
entire series of buses that don't have bike racks, and that they have no
intention of putting bike racks on. The reason given was that Metro was
going
to get a bunch of new buses last year, and retire the 700-series, which were
too
small to put racks on. The deal on the new buses fell through because they
didn't meet ADA requirements, so one would think that Metro might put the
racks
earmarked for those buses on the ones without. They haven't and won't,
because
they say the racks don't fit properly. Given that a machinist can make just
about any kind of mounting jig fairly easily, and buses have loads of sheet
metal up front, I don't understand why they can't just hook them on. It's
not
as if a 2-bike rack takes a lot of load.
Metro says they assign buses to routes on a daily, random basis, but routes
such
as the 56, 57, and 58 appear to get the 700 buses a much higher percentage
of
the time than randomness would indicate, which makes it very hard for users
of
those routes to have the flexibility.
thus ends my current Metro rant.
Rich
