OnMilwaukee.com has a fine article that shows the benefits of having bike racks on Milwaukee County Transit System buses. It makes it clear how easy the racks are to use (be sure to let the driver know you’re either loading or unloading, though) and suggests some great destinations that weren’t possible before we had the bike racks.
The article notes (without comment) that twelve other cities in Wisconsin, including Sheboygan, Green Bay and Madison, have bike racks on buses. Yeah, they were there before Wisconsin’s largest city got them. But we have ‘em now. Enjoy!
I still don’t quite understand the concept. I’ve been measuring bus speeds when I do take the bus, and they basically run bicycle speed, at best. Why wait wait wait wait wait for the bus to show up if you have your bicycle with you and are planning on riding it anyway? Just…ride the bicycle. Are there any bus routes that can average speeds fast enough to save any time? I can see it on commuter rail, with few stops and high speed, though of course we don’t have that in Milwaukee.
Well Beige, the short story is that Anything that increases the value of a public system benefits the public. Having the racks on the buses increases the versatility of the buses and gives people a big reason to ride them. Take a look at Between the Bars. The author says that now she can ride her bike part of the way from Milwaukee’s East Side to somewhere perhaps halfway to Franklin. The 20-30 minute ride by car may take a little longer, but, that’s one less car on the road, with all its advantages, plus the author gets exercise from riding her bike part of the way.
Just today I used it! I rode my bike the eight miles from Bay View to the lakefront in the morning, and then took a bus up to UWM. When it started to rain on the way home, I tossed by bike on an MCTS bus and avoided a wet and possibly dangerous ride home.
It’s also possible to take the bus through parts of town you may not have ridden through and thus don’t know how to navigate, and then take your bike off and ride through one of our fine parks. The uses are many. And I’m grateful we finally have them.
Here’s more evidence that bicycles are an important part of our infrastructure: “The number of Milwaukee workers who bicycled to their jobs more than doubled from 2006 to 2008, and now accounts for more than 1% of the total commuter traffic,” according to a brief on MJS. While the number 1% may not be impressive, that represents a doubling from 2006 to 2008, from 1,154 workers in ‘06 up to 2,508 workers in ‘08. Now, these are just folks whom the census survey found. The actual number is likely quite a bit higher. I’ve seen more people biking, and this verifies what I’ve seen.