Bikes on buses follow-up

I mentioned this briefly last week, but now it is official. GTA is installing bike racks on all 27 buses in the system. Each bus will be outfitted with a Sportworks rack that will have the capacity to carry two bicycles. Currently 62.7 percent of public buses in this country have racks for bikes, so this is definitely a step in the right direction for Greenville. Thanks again to all of you who asked for this through your emails or through the transit survey at the beginning of the summer.

There will be a press conference and an official announcement about the bike racks at 10:00 am on Wednesday, August 22nd (two days from now) at Linky Stone Park (below the Academy Street Bridge). I have a conflict at work and will not be able to attend, but Steve Baker, president of the Greenville Spinners, will be on hand to say a few words and to demonstrate the new racks for the press. If any of you can make it out there Wednesday morning to show your support, I encourage you to do so.

If you didn’t see my post on this subject a few months ago and want to learn more about bikes on transit, I encourage you to download this pdf document from the Federal Transit Administration titled Bicycles & Transit: A Partnership that Works. The document points to success stories in other metro areas that have added provisions for bicycles to their transit systems. In most cases, bus ridership has increased dramatically. In a speech at last year’s National Bicycle Summit, Louisville, Kentucky Mayor Jerry Abramson mentioned that his city’s transit system has seen a double-digit rider increase every year since bike racks were added to buses. Pretty impressive, let’s hope for a similar result here in Greenville.