The city has prepared the policy for allowing bikes onto the LRT, and as usual, is making a policy decision based on fears but without the evidence or work to see if such fears are well founded.

In coming up with the policy, the city looked at 17 other North American agencies: 9 of them allow bikes at all times (San Francisco, Dallas, Atlanta, Los Angeles, Minneapolis, New York, San Diego, Seattle, and Portland), and 8 restrict bikes to off-peak times: (Calgary, Chicago, Edmonton, Boston, Montreal, Vancouver, Toronto, and Washington).

And, in typical Ottawa fashion, they decided to go with the trailing edge of transit design, choosing to ban bikes on LRT between 6-9 am and 3-6 pm on weekdays.

What part of this policy is actually based on evidence? Will bikes actually cause any problems? Will the train be so full, even at 6 am, that some space for bikes can not be found?

If that is the case, then the train is woefully under-built, especially for when phase 2 comes along. If the train is not so full, then why have the ban?

Those agencies that do ban bikes at rush hour have decades-old systems. The newest, Vancouver, was first built in 1985. Calgary (1981), Edmonton (1978), Washington (1976) and Montreal (1966) all first went operational when hardly anyone rode bikes in town, gas was cheap, and people drove around in Lincoln Town Cars. Chicago and Boston first became operational in 1892! Why are we turning to these systems for inspiration on how to build a modern LRT?

As part of the changes that LRT will bring, buses from the west and south will go to Tunney’s Pasture where people will then have to transfer to the LRT to go downtown or eastwards. Rush hour rack and roll users will be stuck, their only options to continue biking from that point, or park their bikes there at the station.