California AB 652 to allow for more bike capacity on buses

Currently in California, buses are restricted to bike racks that extend no more than 36 inches from the front of the bus. Bike handlebars may not extend more than 40 inches from the front of the bus.

It turns out those Sportworks Trilogy bike racks that hold three bikes extend just a little too far to be legal in California, and some transit agencies have stopped adoption of the higher capacity racks because of current law.

Bikes on bus bike rack

Assembly member Nancy Skinner from the East Bay introduced AB 652 last week to increase the allowed length of bike racks to 40 inches, and the maximum handlebar distance to 46 inches.

This is a fairly innocuous bill and should pass routinely, but our California Governator has vetoed similarly innocuous bills before. The CABO forum people are talking about whether it’s best to let this one slide through on the sly, or should we bring attention to this bill to our legislators?

4 Comments

  1. oh this is a great post!
    how can they not pass this?!
    Though, I no longer commute to the east bay as much as I used to back sometime ago, I had the chance to use a tri-rack in the ACbus transbay lines (and fit addtnl 3 underneath it) and the bus rider often had to not accept bikes (at times they were 6+… they were pretty nice and they provide just one more alternative to BART or the Ferry (latter not going near my destination)
    Id be interested on how this goes.

  2. oh this is a great post!how can they not pass this?!Though, I no longer commute to the east bay as much as I used to back sometime ago, I had the chance to use a tri-rack in the ACbus transbay lines (and fit addtnl 3 underneath it) and the bus rider often had to not accept bikes (at times they were 6+… they were pretty nice and they provide just one more alternative to BART or the Ferry (latter not going near my destination)Id be interested on how this goes.

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