Red Line train parked at Crestview Station

When Nicole and I rolled up to the in-progress Crestview Station around midday Saturday,

Almost full!

we were really surprised! Not only was there a good sized crowd gathered, but it seemed that perhaps fifty percent of the curious visitors had come there by bicycle! The five sets of wave racks were nearly full with seemingly more waves of cyclists coming every few minutes.

The open house for the “Red Line“, Capital Metro’s first stab at commuter rail, was in full swing. We saw quite a few families checking out the rail cars as well, with children commenting and asking questions of their parents at each different part of the station. When I sat down for a moment to try out the train’s seating, I was nearly whacked in the foot by not one but two stroller-pushing moms.

Overall aesthetics at the station were good and there were some nice artistic touches.

As many people noted, the Red Line was built on existing rail track and doesn’t quite connect to a good center point downtown, so secondary transportation may be pretty important to get to your final destination. For Capital Metro, that means shuttle buses, but for us, that means bikes!

Good access for bikes? Yep, mostly.

Your front wheel goes up in the air on hooks like these.

On each car of the Red Line commuter train there are six hooks for bicycles, and Capital Metro employees were quick to add that it was not a problem for a cyclist to stand with their bike as well, which I had seen many times on BART trains in San Francisco. Admittedly, since there is no real bicycle access on BART, the Red Line will have it better. Unfortunately, the space for bicycles also doubles as space for disabled passengers.

As Austin On Two Wheels reader Glenn noted (slightly paraphrased, mostly to remove the name of the Capital Metro employee):

I got curious after seeing some online video, from months ago, that showed the interior of the cars. It looked, to me, like the bike racks were placed right above the “priority seating” area, where disabled or senior folks are supposed to sit. My fear was that you’ll either have space for bikes, OR (not AND) space for special-needs folks on the railcars. I emailed CapMetro about that and a few other things, and here’s part of their response.

Bikes. OK. The bike hooks on the train are located above the “priority seating” for seniors and disabled riders. Obviously those riders get first priority. Your bike gets second priority, however, so in theory if the person sitting in the special seating is not a senior or disabled (but how do you define those??) you could politely ask them to move. It is safer for everyone if your bike is secured as opposed to holding it, so this makes sense. Each train will be able to hold six bikes. There is going to be a design modification made due to some regulations by the federal government, and the change may make it easier for you to find a hook. All of the bike hooks will be located on one side of the train only (right now there are hooks on both sides). So over time I’d think that people would stop sitting on the side with the bike hooks, and opt to sit in the priority seating on the other side. We’ll probably blog about this soon, as this is a new bit of information.

Elliott told me this is the way it worked on the MAX trains in Portland as well, so I suppose I shouldn’t worry. It did make me cringe at the thought of having space for bicycles only at the expense of seating for seniors or disabled passengers, though.

PLENTY of Racks

The entry doors are plenty wide.

One thing that Capital Metro has done a terrific job on is providing bicycle parking space at their stations. Now, I haven’t been to every single station, but of the four or so I’ve seen, there has been a LOT of bicycle parking provided. If you don’t need point-to-point bicycle access, that will help you out quite a bit. We’ll only know how this is really going to work once it’s all running. Personally though I would need my bike at each step of the way, and I have to wonder how many other people are going to feel that way too, overwhelming the in-car bicycle access and frustrating would-be carless commuters.

Overall impressions are positive. I was happy to see how fast the development of transit-oriented housing was coming along near the station. The intersection at Lamar and Airport Boulevard still needs a big redesign to become friendly for pedestrians and cyclists but one Capital Metro employee indicated this was in the works. We’ll report more as the system starts running!