MBTA's Pedal and Park (Secure Bike Parking at Major T Stations)

novitiate said:
If I remember when I was looking at the specs of the new cars, this is exactly what the MBTA hopes to have in the new ones.
Click to expand...

The spec right now calls for six flip-up seats per car in both the Red and Orange Line cars, but there is a note to prospective bidders that they may propose a design with additional flip seats to increase maximum passenger capacity on the condition that the weight of a fully loaded car will not exceed the maximum weight criteria established in the specs (110,000 lbs for a fully loaded Orange Line car and 125,000 lbs for a fully loaded Red Line car).
 
Re: MBTA's Pedal and Park

Arlington said:
If the thread goes on, I think it natural that it cover bike-train intermodal concerns.

Still, if any of y'all have experience in the bike cages,that'd be great, like *did* these seven stations get their Charlie-controlled cages as scheduled this year?

Ashmont,
Davis,
Malden,
Back Bay,
Dudley,
Alewife (#2)
Wonderland Stations.
Click to expand...

If Malden isn't open yet, it's way behind schedule. It was nearly complete months ago, but I ahven't seen anything about it being opened up. I know the Oak Grove one was getting some decent use.

Does anyone know how secure these facilities are? Are they really all that much safer than regular racks? Or is it more about the convenience of stacked racks and shelter?
 
The thing that's supposed to make them more secure is that you need a specially registered CharlieCard to get in. Besides that, they also provide protection against rain and snow.
 
Ron Newman said:
The thing that's supposed to make them more secure is that you need a specially registered CharlieCard to get in. Besides that, they also provide protection against rain and snow.
Click to expand...

Agreed: They are a huge improvement over the "just a bike rack on the sidewalk" solution: Caged, covered, gated, watched on camera, card-entry, double-tiered, spacious. Its a real bike garage fit for people who rely on their bikes for their daily commute.

The regular sidewalk rack is unmasked as the school-kids and leisure-cyclist solution. I would never have seriously considered the sidewalk racke and I'm sure that once hooked, real commuters won't go back to bare pipes.

And I'm impressed with the success they had with the cardboard cutout of a police officer in reducing bike thefts by 67% year-over-year...that and, I think, the cages are on the stations' security camera system.

So the racks on the train are going to get the most use from people who dont' have a Park and Pedal cage available to them. And given the operational hit (described by F-Line) that large "things" (strollers, bikes, luggage) impose on the trains, the long-term solution seems to be to put a platform/station cage wherever any significant number of bikes might be intercepted rather than boarded.
 
The better way is to put the bike racks inside of the fare controlled area, where feasible.

I don't think those cages are very helpful if they are located out of sight of most people.
 
No. THen you would have people unnecessarily congesting the fare gates by carrying bikes in and out of them.

People who need the bike cages know how to find them. They aren't that obscure.
 
By out of sight I mean "easy places for criminals to setup shop and cut locks."

Putting them inside the fare controlled area means that they are under frequent surveillance.

The problem with bike racks at train stations is that it's almost a guaranteed site where you can be sure the bike owners will not be back for 6-8 hours. Plenty of time to work through the toughest lock.

I remember that when I rented a bike in California I had to sign a contract which stipulated that I would never use a bike rack next to or on a Caltrain platform. The manager explained to me that leaving your bike there is as good as giving it to thieves.

The bike cages here are supposed to alleviate that problem by putting the bikes in a secure area, but I think that the cages are not very well placed in some instances, making them desolate little corners. A thief with a Bike Charlie Card can easily get in and get to work with little chance of being seen. And that cardboard cutout of a cop ain't going to work forever.
 
Unless the Bike Charlie Cards are tied to a verified address, this all seems useless. You need to be able to track who comes in and out.
 
The bike charlie cards no longer work unless they have been registered, you are required to include your name and address in the registration. Pick a name and where you want to live, if you like; but, it's better than before when all you had to do is ask for a bike charlie card to gain access. That is assuming the pedal and park cage locks are actually working.
At least the T cops can have a laugh watching bikes get stolen.
 
BostonUrbEx said:
Unless the Bike Charlie Cards are tied to a verified address, this all seems useless. You need to be able to track who comes in and out.
Click to expand...

Reducing crime is partly a process of communicating that a place is watched by people who care about it--and "fake" versions of this can be very cost-effective, like keeping it clean and graffiti-free, and cardboard cutout officer (or, in other studies, just a big pair of eyes). Motion-sensing lights would help (they are the single most cost-effective crime-preventer).

Then there's the motion-sensing monitor: where a monitor turns on with the CCTV image when it detects motion--which is great because it says "you moved and 'we' saw it and are watching now"

Or an RFID tag on your bike tied to your card, that would some how confirm that it and your card "go together"

All these are "passive" (not requiring intrusive data-collection) so I'd like to try them first.

In a "middle" place would be having a charlie card show your face and a picture of your bike from a database upon entry...no name/address needed just "you're going in, and here's what you've told us you look like"--just pictures, no data.

If Civil Libertarians would allow (or I could make it optional) I would also like to see the creation of profiles for cards- able to store a picture of yourself and your bike in your profile, and a verified email, IP address, or home address.
 
So I'd have to RIFD chip (or register) all my bikes to use the cages? I have too many bikes for that!
 
Randomgear said:
So I'd have to RIFD chip (or register) all my bikes to use the cages? I have too many bikes for that!
Click to expand...
Work with me here. For one thing, start with your more valuable bikes. Second, its more like vaccinating a community...you don't need 100%...but it really helps to reach a critical mass for "herd immunity" --conveying a sense that it just isn't worth it. So just tagging the "valuable looking" bikes seems like a good start. Hiding passive RFID under the seat or in an epoxied dot would probably work.

Kind of like how putting the VIN# on all the major parts of a car has crimped the market for strippng cars...not every part needs a number and not all crime has been stopped, but it makes criminals "move on" to other less-challenging environment. Or when your bank puts your picture on your ATM card.

Heck, decoys would probably work well enough. If the "threat" were that 30% of the time a bike would trigger the display on a public display a 3-part picture:
File photo of it's owner's face,
File photo of the bike,
"Live" photo of a person and the bike as they "go out," from there a lot of positive feedback would be triggered:
-Anyone in the cage would be encouraged to challenge the guy
-A warning could be sounded (public or slient) if the faces seemed not to match.
-The criminal would know that his picture would be specially taken *and* specially scrutinized.
 
Randomgear said:
So I'd have to RIFD chip (or register) all my bikes to use the cages? I have too many bikes for that!
Click to expand...

Random -- the simple fact is that Bikes, strollers and chairs in large quantities are fundamentally incompatible with people on the T during rush hours -- and that incompatibility applies to trains, platforms, fare collection areas, escalators, stairs, elevators -- none of these where designed for the extra space required for wheels

Since chairs are ADA they must be accommodated at the same time that true pedestrians are accommodated

As for bikes -- use them to commute to/from your T origination station where you park them -- then take the T and if you need a bike in town -- use a renta-bike --- reverse the process on the homeward commute -- or --
just ride to your office, etc. -- leave the bike in your building and leave the T to the true pedestrians

People with strollers need to use the T off-peak only when the space for 2 or 3 occupied by the stroller is available
 
whighlander said:
People with strollers need to use the T off-peak only when the space for 2 or 3 occupied by the stroller is available
Click to expand...

You don't ride the Red Line through downtown at rush hour when people are dropping off or picking up their kids from daycare, do you?
 
This is shitty and uninformed, but why can't people hold their children anymore? Why does every child need an SUV to be carted around in?
 
I put in 5 years recently commuting with my various infants on the subway to downtown daycare during rush hour. More parents should absolutely be carrying their young ones during rush hour commutes. Most of the time, someone would give up their seat (although middle aged women would do so much more often then men my age sadly).

If we were taking a longer excursion on the subway with the kids and brought the stroller, we would do so at times where we could expect space on the trains.
 
There's a several year age gap where a kid is too heavy to carry, but may not be able to handle rush hour crowds very well. A normal (not obese) three-year-old weighs some 32 pounds, which is far too heavy to comfortably carry for more than a few minutes. But that same kid may well have a lot of trouble trying to stay with mom or dad in a crowd full of tall strangers crossing paths and rushing everywhere.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.

Back
Top