Regarding having a special car just for bikes: I think that's an ok solution as well. I still think the BEST solution is for people to use folding bikes.

If our overall goal is to encourage as many people as possible to get out of their cars and use public transit, it seems to me we need to make the ride as pleasant as possible. Packing people into trains and buses where they have to stand cheek by jowl with strangers is not the way to entice people out of their cars! So, that option should be taken off the table right away.

For the same reason, removing seats from trains does not improve the quality of the ride experience. Sitting comfortably on a train or bus is a fundamental aspect of a positive travel experience.

I'm also a bike rider and want to see bike riding facilitated in every way possible. Wouldn't it be simpler and easier for bike riders as well as other transit riders if there were special cars for bikes along the lines suggested by Sam and some other writers?

Let's not degrade the overall quality of the public transit experience by focusing only on getting as many people as possible from here to there. Let's also aim to make the trip itself enjoyable for all.

As my Mother used to say, "This moment, too, is part of eternity."

Julia

My name is Sam, I am a 4th grade student in Los Angeles.

I am on a team competing in FIRST LEGO League, which promotes science and technology for kids. This year’s theme is Climate Connections, and our team chose to study the connections between rising temperatures and car emissions in Los Angeles. Did you know that these two things both affect each other?

Our team needed to think of a creative solution for our topic. We found that a lot of car emissions come from people who drive a long distance to work every day, such as from Palmdale or Riverside to the downtown area. These areas have commuter trains called MetroLink, and our idea is to add a rail car for bikes only. This would encourage more people to leave the car at home, and get to work with bike and train.

We were surprised to learn that MetroLink has room for only 2 bikes per train car. The other LA train system is a subway called Metro that travels shorter distances. Metro is adding bike lockers at some stations, but this means you have to buy two bikes if you really want to stop driving the car to work.

In LA and other cities, train companies do not want to remove more seats to make room for bikes, because it would reduce their income. Passenger train cars are expensive and take a long time to get. So our idea is to take older rail cars that were used for something else, and make some changes to allow bike racks and ramps to get on and off. After parking your bike in this rail car you just go sit down in a regular passenger car. Adding these simple rail cars to the commuter train would not reduce income, and might even sell more tickets from all the people that could now take their bike to work.

We made several designs of rail cars that could hold between 34 and 80 bikes. We estimate that each bikes-only rail car could reduce 408 to 960 tons of carbon dioxide emissions per year, if these commuters stopped driving 60 miles each way. This is based on 0.8 pounds of CO2 per mile driven.

We also researched to see if other parts of the world have tried this idea. Some cities in the US are adding more room for bikes by taking out seats, but this is going slow. Some cities in Europe have taken out most or all of the seats, with people standing next to the bikes, but this was on subways and different than our topic of long distance commuters.

If you have read all this, thank you very much, because another one of our assignments was to share our project with people who might be interested. Internet blogs are a good way for our team to try and share our work with a lot of people. Hopefully you like our idea, and please wish us luck in our competition. If you want to see us compete we will be at Magic Mountain, November 16, 2008 at 9:00 am.

Sam

And who's to say the seats that are taken out are not the "seats" the bike rider uses? I would argue that it could INCREASE capacity by taking seats out. 3-4 bikes would take the space of two seats if they were hung up and the cyclist can stand. Net result is a 1-2 passenger increase per space. There would be an increase in capacity since not all trains may have bikes on them. So more people are able to pack in standing.

At this point we need more reasons for people to ditch their cars and ride the Metro with their bikes, not less.

I might also add, go see how other countries are doing it successfully. This is not rocket science. There are countless example of cities moving their peeps around successfully and at a fraction of the energy use this country uses.

The fact is, the bikes will be on these trains whether those seats are there or not. I've been on the blue and red lines near rush hour, and yes they are packed, and yes there are people with bikes riding on them as well. (I haven't seen the "no bikes on the train between these hours" rule enforced.)

So, since the bikes are there anyway, the only quesion is should we remove a few seats here and there to make it more possible for these bikes to not be in everyone else's way, or not? Seems like a no-brainer to me.

And for those of you who are trying to make the argument that bringing a bike on a train is like owning an SUV. . . please. Using your bike with public transit means you don't need to use your car, which is completely in-line with the "greenie" way of thinking: less energy use, less polution. Yes, it is bringing "extra stuff", and bikers should make every effort to make sure their bike doesn't get in people's way, but comparing a bicyclist to an gas-guzzling SUV driver? Give me a break.

Oh, and just FYI: that's my bike in the picture that accompanies the article. It's a 26" wheel mountain bike that folds in half (got it new for $130 at rvtoyoutlets.com), and it's shown on the red line. On that very same ride, someone with a full-sized bike got on the train, and had to move his bike every time someone was getting on or off, to get out of their way. My folding bike sat neatly out of the way. I recognize that not everyone can afford to just go out and get a new bike just so it folds, but there's some food for thought.

If you are a Republican that rides a bike, I'm not talking to you. I get it if you're that person, but the greenie people what's up? I guess I just want an explanation why this looks good to you when you see the red line and the blue line and the green line filled to capacity at 5pm, I mean maybe that's it. Maybe you don't have a job where you get off at 5pm so you don't know. I'm not sure.

To me what this looks like is SUV mentality in the alternative transportation movement. People who want seats taken away so they can bring their bikes are like people with big gigantic SUVs taking up parking and wasting gas. This country is amazing. LA is amazing we can't even be environmentally friendly without f*cking it up and turning it into this ugly consumer based individual needs kind of thing.

Browne

Great step Metro!

The right of way that the Gold Line occupies used to do all sorts of things (not just people moving). Light freight cars used to make Pasadena to L.A. trips all day long.

I know it seems far fetched, but owning a bike shop adjacent the Highland Park station, I keep thinking that an extra car that took on light freight and bicycles would be a very important amenity along this line. It would allow me to get goods to and from my store to shipping centers easily, and would give local goods sellers more options (currently the only realistic option in this area is transport of goods by automobile).

Metro has always been half-assed at best when it comes to bikes. As Mr. Campbell pointed out, Metro has long ignored the problem. The paucity of bike lockers (not to mention the few that are still round being poorly designed and easy to breach) and the ridiculous rules about bikes (which were not enforced by LAPD nor now are enforced by the current crop of revenue collectors, LASD and their silly little white-shirt-wearing peons) is indicative of Metro's action regarding bikes.
Seeing as Metro CEO Roger Snoble makes well over a quarter million dollars annually as well as gets some enviable perks, I feel we should all tell him to work for a better solution. The trains are far too crowded as it, as well as run too infrequently (when they are not being re-scheduled for "maintenance," or taken off-line altogether owing to Metro's incompetence) for the relative minority of riders with bikes to be given extra space at the expense of the vast majority of those who do not take their bikes on the trains.

This is not a solution and it will not work. When straphangers start getting bumped owing to the considerable amount of space given too many bicyclists with overly large bikes (and I see one or two every day), it will become obvious that Eric Garcetti's ill-conceived notion is not working.

At that time, I wrote to each and every MTA boardmember lengthy letters urging the accommodation of bicycles on board. The letters were accompanied by before/after hand-drawn sketches of Red Line car interiors with two seats removed that would allow that.

Ten years later... FINALLY!