Bikers set to strap into BART trains
New system meant to make cyclists’ travels easier gets a mixed reaction
Raymond Farroux trudged down the steps in the Powell BART Station, his darkgreen bike in hand, bracing himself for the ordeal of taking a bike on the train.
“Last week, a lady thought I was trying to steal her purse while I held my bike in the train,” Farroux said on Monday. “It was just my handlebar that got tangled with her purse.”
Farroux, like so many cyclists in the Bay Area, struggles with boarding a bike on BART trains. There’s no place to put them, he said. But BART announced this week that bikers like Farroux will soon be able to use straps attached to the rail — straps that will be gradually added to all BART trains to ensure riders of there being fewer “bikes jostling around.”
The straps enable cyclists to free up their hands from steadying the bike and instead stabilize themselves, according to BART.
The new straps stem from a project headed by Steve Beroldo, manager of access programs at BART. Beroldo gathered input
from riders through online surveys and tested several prototypes before arriving at a flameretardant nylon strap with a black buckle that attaches to the railing using a rivet for security.
“We wanted to offer a more formal method for people to hold their bikes,” Beroldo said.
Each strap can secure two bikes, but people like Chuy Ng, who works at a bike shop in San Francisco, say the move is not enough for the amount of people who take bikes on BART. The straps are already on some BART trains, and Ng’s tried them. He’s not impressed.
“It’s cumbersome. I don’t like it,” Ng said. “Once there’s some bike in the bar, I don’t like it when they put it on top of mine.”
He rides a glossy, olivegreen bike that he admits was pricier than he would have liked.
“Thank goodness for the employee discount,” Ng said.
Ng added that in theory, the straps make sense. Place bike on strap, bike doesn't move, hands are free — it “sounds nice,” he said.
“But I think people are going to just stack them,” Ng said. “What are you going to do when you have to get off and your bike is in between others?”
Munkh Bat is definitely prostraps. He hates standing with his bike on BART. This might solve it, he said.
“It sounds like it’ll be easier,” Bat said.
Ryan Sheppard is a student at Stanford and likes to get places quickly. He’s also team straps.
“I think they’re good,” Sheppard said. “The bikes can move around a lot . ... I think these are going to be nice.”
Right next to the escalators to go down to the Powell BART Station was Jeremy Redford, sweat dripping down from his beanie. The Oakland resident takes his bike onto BART three times a week for work and has mixed feelings about the straps.
“It feels like a BandAid solution,” Redford said. “If there’s more than one bike stacked on top of each other, it becomes an extreme inconvenience for the person getting off ... who now has a bike behind other bikes.”
Still, when the train is empty and there are no other cyclists, it will be nice to have the option to sit down, he said.
Farroux’s not as worried about his bike getting scraped by others.
“I have a pieceofcrap bike, so I don’t have to worry about that,” Farroux said. “As long as I can sit down and not worry about falling or rolling over, I’m good.”
The straps will eventually be in Fleet of the Future cars as well. BART stated the project is part of an ongoing effort to double the amount of passengers who access BART by bicycle from 4% to 8% by 2022.