You'll Be Seeing Bike Racks on Amtrak Very Soon!
Some very exciting news for bicyclists!
Check it: Amtrak recently announced that it is installing new baggage cars with bike racks to all its long-distance trains by the end of the year. This includes the Amtrak Capitol Limited train that runs between Washington, D.C., and Pittsburgh, Pa.—creating a new connection for cyclists to access the Great Allegheny Passage (GAP) and the C & O Canal, and ultimately changing the way people tour, vacation and get around in the U.S. Awesome.
Currently, only a small amount of Amtrak routes allow assembled bikes—and in limited amounts. But, as RTC covered in a blog last fall, Amtrak tested a brief pilot run of roll-on bike service with six vertically mounted bicycle restraints installed in a lower-level baggage area of a Superliner coach (departing from Pittsburgh). This breakthrough came after years of advocacy from local business people and bicyclists, who were frustrated by the lack of “roll-on” bike carriage service on Amtrak. Participants indicated that the tests were successful.
Amtrak had also been testing these bike racks in Michigan, New York and Vermont, but this was the first time they did so for a two-level Superliner.
"After this test run of roll-on bike service, it's clear to me that carrying an unboxed bike on a train can work in the U.S., just as it does across Europe. My only concern is that on routes like the Capitol Limited, which serve bike-friendly cities and hugely popular corridors like the GAPCO and U.S. Bike Route 50, there won't be enough racks on each train to adequately meet demand,” said Champe Burnley of the Virginia Bicycling Federation, a long-time advocate for this issue.
The new baggage cars to be installed this year—which are currently being tested in Chicago, New Orleans, Miami and the Northeast Corridor, according to an Amtrak blog post—will be used on all 15 of Amtrak’s long-distance routes, for the first time allowing the bicycling masses to transport their bikes without having to disassemble and pack them away during the train journey. Nice—eh?
For more information, check out this article by Jon Schmitz of the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette.
“It’s great to have Amtrak understanding how important the bike tourism industry is,” Linda Boxx is quoted as saying. A former president and current member of the Allegheny Trail Alliance, Boxx has worked for years to persuade Amtrak to provide better accommodations for bikes.
And check out this post that recently ran in Streetsblog.
RTC acknowledges the incredible efforts of Boxx and Burnley in making this historic development possible! And a special shout out to Amtrak for recognizing how important it is to create connections for people who are embracing active transportation and trail tourism—things that are helping communities thrive along the GAP, the C & O and all across America.
