Bicycling

Weekend video: Buses and bike racks

by Matt Johnson   •   February 19, 2011 10:53 am

Clarence Eckerson and the team over at Streetfilms have put together a great video about buses and bike racks.

The film even includes an interview with WMATA's own Nat Bottigheimer, Assistant General Manager for Planning and Joint Development.

The film mainly talks about how New York City is the only major city in the United States without bike racks on its buses.

And it notes that 100% of Washington's buses are equipped with bike racks. However, that's slightly misleading. It's true that 100% of WMATA's buses are equipped, and they represent the lion's share of buses in the region, but not all of our buses have the racks.

None of Prince George's County's TheBus buses have bike racks. In Alexandria, the city council made bike racks on buses a priority, but it's unclear if the racks have been installed. DASH's website doesn't make any mention of bikes.

Among the other local bus operators though, 100% of buses have bike racks. That includes every bus operated by Arlington Transit, DC Circulator, Fairfax Connector, Fairfax City CUE, PRTC (local buses only), and Montgomery's Ride On.

It's time that the rest of the region got on board with bike racks.

Matt Johnson has lived in the Washington region since mid-2007. He has a Master's degree in Community Planning from the University of Maryland and a BS in Public Policy from Georgia Tech. He has worked in the planning field since 2006 and lives in Greenbelt, where he serves on the city's Advisory Planning Board.