BICYCLE ACCESS TO PUBLIC TRANSPORTATION: LEARNING FROM ABROAD

Abstract

In the face of traffic congestion, air pollution, and inadequate fiscal resources, American communities need to consider new, more cost-effective strategies to expand transit use and reduce automobile dependence. Worldwide experience suggests that improving bicycle access to transit in the United States may be the most promising but neglected low-cost strategy to enhance air quality while increasing the freedom of travelers to choose alternatives to the automobile. Bicycles are the fastest-growing and predominant mode of access to express public transportation services in many European communities and in Japan. Provision of secure bicycle storage at rail stations, development of bicycle-friendly street networks, and the creation of a climate of community opinion supportive of bicycling are all important factors behind the success of bike-and-ride systems in these countries. U.S. transit access systems have increasingly relied on the automobile. However, park-and-ride systems have served only suburb-to-central city travel markets, which are of declining importance, while weakening transit system competitiveness in the growing suburb-to-suburb travel market. U.S. communities can learn valuable lessons from the foreign experience in creating balanced multimodal transit access systems that include the bicycle.

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