Many urban-suburban trains, and even some regional trains, have entire cars dedicated for bicycles, with no (or only few) seats. This is very scalable on multiple scales, when the demand is growing:
Adding more bicycle cars to existing bike-friendly trains 🏩🚞🚃🚃🚃🚃🏫
Adding more bike-friendly trains to existing lines 🚆🚆🚉🚊🚇🚇
Building new well-placed bike-friendly stations on existing lines 🏢🏪🚵♂️🚵♀️🚈
Adding more passenger railway lines to existing rail networks. 🛤️🛤️🛤️🛤️🛤️
There are definitely scaling limits for bike on trains, 1 bike takes up the space and manoeuvre room that could fit 3 or 4 people. Bike to station, leave bike there, use (ad hoc rental) other bike at destination is clearly a lot more scalable than filling trains with bikes.
1 bike takes up the space and manoeuvre room that could fit 3 or 4 people.
I’d say two bikes in a well-designed alternating rack along the wall takes up about the same space as two seats beside each other. Also, some people will stand along the bikes if their train ride is short, taking up less space than a seat. My estimate would be that 1 person + 1 bike ≈ 1,75 seats on average.
Beside that, I think you have a valid point in that a big part of the solution is locally available micromobility options, but I don’t think bike-friendly trains wouldn’t be a part of the solution too, since people will probably still want to own bikes, scooters etc. in the future. I, at least, like owning things that make my life easier.
Many urban-suburban trains, and even some regional trains, have entire cars dedicated for bicycles, with no (or only few) seats. This is very scalable on multiple scales, when the demand is growing:
There are definitely scaling limits for bike on trains, 1 bike takes up the space and manoeuvre room that could fit 3 or 4 people. Bike to station, leave bike there, use (ad hoc rental) other bike at destination is clearly a lot more scalable than filling trains with bikes.
I’d say two bikes in a well-designed alternating rack along the wall takes up about the same space as two seats beside each other. Also, some people will stand along the bikes if their train ride is short, taking up less space than a seat. My estimate would be that 1 person + 1 bike ≈ 1,75 seats on average.
Beside that, I think you have a valid point in that a big part of the solution is locally available micromobility options, but I don’t think bike-friendly trains wouldn’t be a part of the solution too, since people will probably still want to own bikes, scooters etc. in the future. I, at least, like owning things that make my life easier.
K but… what’s up with the emoji?
Dunno, had fun 🤸♂️