Folding Bikes & Mass Transit

A Sensible, Integrated Transportation Solution

By Larry Lagarde

Would commuting via folding bike and mass transit be appealing? Commuter Ellen Babcock thinks so. She has no regrets about giving up commuting via her pickup for a multi-modal commute via folding bike and transit.

Reading Ellen's story, I wondered whether the same logic could be applied to even the most car centric metropolis. To get an answer, I contacted the Los Angeles Metropolitan Transit Authority (MTA) and learned that they're working on a plan to encourage using fold up bikes with the Metro.

According to an interview I conducted with MTA's Dave Sotero and Lynn Goldsmith, Caltrans recently awarded $85,000 to the Los Angeles County Metropolitan Transportation Authority to prepare a program to get more cyclists and motor vehicle drivers to ride L. A.'s Metro. How? By offering an incentive for using a folding bike in combination with the Metro.

MTA officials view folding bikes as a partial answer to 2 tough problems facing transit agencies worldwide: how to get more commuters to use mass transit and how to accommodate additional transit users. Like most transit agencies, Metro barely has enough funds to make ends meet. If they can convince more commuters to adopt folding bikes, transit administrators can improve infrastructure (as in buy more buses and subway coaches as well as build more Park and Ride facilities) in a sensible and affordable manner.

To fund the folding bike incentive program, Metro is studing similar projects like Santa Cruz's Folding Bikes in Buses program. The Santa Cruz program offsets the cost of acquiring a folding bike to use with the buses. A pollution mitigation grant from the Monterey Bay Unified Air Pollution Control District funds the Santa Cruz program.

Although folding bike users can board MTA trains & buses at any time, restrictions exist for full size bikes and this has caused friction. In June, L.A. City Council President Eric Garcetti pushed for the MTA to drop the rush hour ban on full size bikes and even suggested that seats be pulled from Metro trains to provide more space for bicycles. Naturally, this did not sit well with non-cycling Metro users.

Although folding bikes are not for everyone, their versatility makes it more practical for more people to use mass transit. Riding a bike right up to the transit stop, folding the bike and rolling it aboard often takes less time than driving and parking at a transit station. Keeping your 'last mile' transportation (folding bike) by your side also alleviates the worry of leaving your vehicle unattended at the station all day.

Although the MTA has funding to study a folding bike incentive program, funding the folding bike incentives is another matter. Nevertheless, Metro authorities hope to begin offering incentives to encourage more commuters to use folding bikes in a year or so.

By the way, Dave Sotero commutes regularly via the MTA + folding bike and has found that folding bikes easily fit in a variety of places on all of the MTA buses and trains. In fact, all credit for the photos displayed in the following slideshow (showing folding bikes traveling on the Metro) goes to Dave.