From the San Jose Mercury News:
It’s 5:15 p.m., rush hour at Caltrain’s Hillsdale station in San Mateo. Among the dozens of riders arrayed across the platform to catch the northbound “Baby Bullet” express train, the most watchful are the bicyclists.
They’re hoping they don’t get turned away.
Ridership is soaring amid high gas prices and global warming fears. The bicycle program is a well-established hit, with about one in 15 Caltrain riders bringing their wheels on board. Caltrains are getting so crowded at peak commute hours that not everyone’s bike can fit on board. So when a Baby Bullet pulls out of the station, a handful of the rail line’s most dedicated customers are left in the cold.
Read the full story in the Mercury News. I ride Caltrain daily on my commute and I’m amazed at how crowded the bike car remains. This morning, many of the usual riders were on the train in spite of the rain and cooler weather. I took the below photo in the summer of 2006 — the bike car now looks like this in winter 2007.
The Highway 17 Express bus from Santa Cruz to San Jose also remains crowded, although in the winter I’m often the only cyclist. Now that we have WiFi, incidents like this 14 car pileup this morning means I sit longer on the bus hooked to the Internet.
If you take public transportation for your commute, are you seeing similar ridership increases in your area?
