Bikes on Buses.

How do we get more bums on buses. With the increased public awareness of climate change, one of the many questions received by City Hall is how can we improve public transit in Guelph.

A question posed recently was can the City of Guelph have bicycle racks on their city buses. This would allow transit users to ride their bike to a bus stop, load their bike and travel across town.

Here is a condensed version of Guelph Transit’s response to this question:

“About eight years ago when Bike Racks were relatively new to the transit industry, Transit Services in consultation with the Transit Advisory Committee reviewed the issue. At that time, a decision was made not to proceed for the following reasons;

– with limited time available in the operating schedule, the time required to load and unload bicycles would delay the service
– the added length of the bus would affect the turning radius which is problematic on many of the existing routes.
– there were very few (if any) requests for bike racks
– it was felt the costs to add this feature would outweigh the benefit.

Since that time we have had very few requests for bike racks. Having said that, we can certainly revisit the issue. Although the running time on our current schedules remains extremely tight, there may be new racks available that would address some of the previously identified concerns.”