(Photo: TriMet)
TriMet announced today that they have removed four seats in each of their WES Commuter Rail cars in order to make more room for bicycles. When WES opened back in January, the cars only had two designated hooks for bicycles, leading to immediate concerns from multi-modal commuters.
The issue has been on TriMet’s radar since mid-February when TriMet’s executive director of operations Steve Banta brought up the issue at a board meeting. The issue Banta raised is how to deal with the Federal Railroad Administration regulations that the WES must meet. Unlike MAX, FRA regulations say that any object that can fly and hit someone must be secured (whereas on MAX, it is OK to just sit with your bike, on WES it must be secured with a strap or hook).
As they hinted at back in February, TriMet has now put two sets of bike straps in each priority seating area. In addition to the two existing hooks, this brings total WES train capacity up to six bikes. Of course, riders using mobility devices and senior citizens have priority in priority seating areas.
Learn more about bringing your bike on WES here.
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So will bikes outnumber actual passengers now? (Joking, but from all accounts that I have read, WES is off to a horrendous start as far as ridership goes).
If only they would take out a few seats from Max as well.
Hey Babygorilla,
This is why you shouldn’t automatically believe what you read.
WES ridership is lower than what was originally anticipated, but only by about 10% or so. Unfortunately, there are a few media outlets (cough, KATU, cough, Oregonian) that decided to take the maximum capacity and say that because the trains aren’t full on every trip that it must be failing…
I’ve been riding the train everyday since it started and there are generally about 30-40 people on the same train in the morning (max of about 70 with 1 train car), and about 70-80 in the afternoons (max of about 145 with 2 train cars).
That’s pretty good considering a lot of the companies originally surveyed for ridership figures have gone out of business or extremely reduced (G.I. Joe’s, Hollywood Video, Infocus).
Yay! Thank you Trimet!!! I’m planning to use WES sometime to head down to Champoeg and do a tour of the Willamette ferries. Great to know it’ll be easier to get on.
(and thanks for your disability-friendly language Jonathan… 🙂
Yes, the ridership is less than they expected, but as the economy improves, more people will seek out WES as a desirable way of travel.
The fact that TriMet is increasing its bike capacity is great news. I wish Amtrak would do the same. I just posted about this today on my blog including some suggestions on how Amtrak can become more multi-modal as it comes to bikes.
Amtrak and Improving Bicycle Connectivity for Portland http://bit.ly/elS1P
Esther (#4) – Be aware that WES does not run on the weekend, so if you head down to Champoeg or back on the weekend your options are either to ride the whole thing or to ride to one of the bus termini like Sherwood.
I’ve been thinking about using WES for that too, at least on Friday afternoon / evening to get out to Wilsonville. Makes Champoeg a really short trip.
You can also use WES to get to Salem – Wilsonville has a SMART bus line which goes from the WES to Salem for a few dollars.
I’ve been riding the WES, and its hard to get a seat sometimes. You always have to double up now, and I’m catching the 6pm ride back to Portland (reverse commute, after rush hour).
Esther,
Take the express bus to Sherwood….
It is very fast, few stops, runs from downtown… But not on weekends…..have to ride the regular route.
Aren’t bikes made to be ridden? Not ride with.
It’s not like WES needs the seats for non-bicycle passenger…
I wish we can have reallocated the 100+ million(!!!) for that POS project and completely built out the region’s bike network.
Mike, people who ride that train might disagree with you. Not everyone can be, or is a cyclist. Try not to have such as self-centered view.
I really wish Trimet would also recognize the absolute need for bike cars on the MAX, at least during the rush hours. The MAX is always crammed with bikes during the 5pm-7pm hours, and often much later. And, I often see cyclists at stops just west of the Zoo tunnel who can’t get on east bound trains in the morning because there’s no room, let alone bike hooks.