[YawningAngel]

I don't fault OP for this, but it's pretty frustrating to me as someone who's quite attached to his non-folding bike that the main benefit of folding bikes is that, unlike regular bikes, they aren't banned from pretty much all public transport

[CalRobert]

Full size bikes on public transport doesn’t work well when crowded though. I briefly took a bikee recumbent (really small) on BART and it was great for me but pretty annoying for others for 1 stop (sorry if you went between Ashby and Oakland in 2011!)

Even in the Netherlands you need to pay €8.50 to bring your bike on, perhaps so the trains aren’t overrun.

[YawningAngel]

I think that is a very valid criticism. Equally, in the UK there is a sense of providers having tried nothing and then given up concluding that it hasn't worked. Some services that ban bikes legitimately cannot accommodate them safely, some can. Some services legitimately are too busy at peak times to accommodate bikes, and some ban them anyway because making granular policy is hard. In a similar vein, some of those same services that ban bikes due to how busy they are running eight of a possible 10 carriages because they claim not to need the space.

I think a lot of the rules turn out to be reasonable but the rulemakers should be less gung-ho about restricting bikes when they don't really need to

[CalRobert]

Yeah, among other things I thought it was odd I've only seen bike racks on buses in the US, but not in Europe (having looked for them in Ireland, the UK, and the Netherlands)

[hamdingers]

Thankfully uncommon in North America. Growing up in Los Angeles where every bus has racks and every train car has bike spots, I was shocked the first time I visited SF and found I couldn't bring it on Muni trains.

I know DC bans them and Boston/NYC/Toronto have limited hours, but every other city with a metro seems to welcome them.

[mh2266]

NYC subway allows bikes 24/7, only MNR and LIRR have time restrictions

[dhosek]

Chicago started allowing them on the “L” about a decade or so ago, although with limitations during rush hour. But the fact that boarding the “L” usually requires stairs at both ends of the trip makes it less appealing.

Likewise, Metra, the Chicago equivalent of LA’s Metrolink started allowing bikes on its trains at about the same time, but the train cars used are hostile to bikes because you have to climb stairs inside the train and then you end up in a narrow vestibule with sliding doors on each side. The Metrolink cars. meanwhile, have the first level at the same height as the boarding platforms and a nice open area where bikes fit. LA has highly benefited from speccing its transport infrastructure late in the game.

[least]

DC does not ban normal bikes. I see them all the time on the metro. I'd say it is becoming less common as they build out more bike parking infrastructure at stations, but it is definitely something people still do.

I do find my brompton a lot more convenient for the train, though.

[Neywiny]

I remember one time on the bus a commuter had his full sized bike in the bus. This was a full sized with plenty of space bus, so it wasn't really in the way at all. The bike rack was full and it was a summer day. So probably the guy figured he may as well just try bringing it on instead of waiting another hour for a bus and hoping there's space.

Anyway one busybody got all uppity. But the driver and rest of the passengers didn't care. So it was fine.

[tokioyoyo]

Yeah, this definitely wouldn't fly in any country where a lot of people bike and use transit. Tokyo metro would be hell if full sized bikes would be allowed.

[clan]

Copenhagen has fairly decent public transportation and biking is quite common.

Bikes are allowed basicly everywhere: https://dinoffentligetransport.dk/en/how-to-travel/bicycles-...

Caveat: Bikes are not allowed in the Metro during rush hours 07:00-09:00 and 15:30-17:30. But it is allowed the rest of the time and has 24H service.

You should also know that the greater Copenhagen area is covered by "S-Trains" which are running on dedicated (not mainline) tracks. So metro-ish.

The S-Trains have dedicated space for bikes: https://youtu.be/hgfOxNRAktI

So even bumblebees can fly if you let them.

[Symbiote]

Actually taking a bike on the Copenhagen metro is rare, in my experience, except very late at night when it's empty anyway.

It is almost as annoying to others as taking a bike on a bus.

[dhosek]

Many US buses have a bike rack on the front that can hold 2 or 3 bikes which allows for easy bike-bus travel. I don’t think bringing the bike inside the bus is an option anywhere.

[Symbiote]

I've never seen these in Europe. I suspect they are incompatible with the much stricter pedestrian safety rules.

In Copenhagen if someone needs a bike at both ends of their journey (not very common) they might own two, and leave one at the station.

[dhosek]

Here’s an image of a typical rack:

https://www.sportworks.com/product/apexplus-3

[clan]

You missed the point.

The bike is for biking. Of course it is annoying when people bring it on the bus. Or park it in front of my door.

The bike on the metro is not rare because it is annoying. People do simply not have that much tact. It is more rare because people bike those distances and you pay extra on the metro. It is free on the S-Train which also covers longer distances - hence more bikes.

I find bikes annoying in general as well. But that is because they are usually attached to a human.

The point was that it can actually work.

It is not all of nothing. It is an integrated system which actually works.

This was a reply to a comment which claimed that bikes could not work in a large city with a lot of bikes and public transportation.

The same people often argue that bikes cannot work in cold weather.

[analog31]

Granted I live in a smaller town, but I see a lot of bikes on the bus. Given that we don't have a super dense transit system, bike + bus is a practical way for a lot of people to make buses work. The bike solves the "last mile problem."

Both of my kids have jobs that let out after the last buses run at night, so they take the bus to work and ride their bikes home.

[afavour]

I understand the frustration but also bikes take up a lot of space. When someone brings one on the NYC subway at rush hour it’s definitely an inconvenience.

[Gigachad]

I feel like the failure here is that it gets so packed that there isn't space for a bike. Because it's not just bikes impacted here. If you can't fit a bike, you can't fit a wheelchair, you can't fit a pram, you don't have space for someone who needs to sit down, or someone who can't handle being pressed in at all sides by other passengers.

It's a wrong allocation of resources where we decide everyone can have 4 empty seats to drive to work but we can't fit 1 person and a bike on PT.

[jmm5]

Pretty much any decent mass transit system in the world is packed at rush hour. The whole advantage over private vehicles comes from the fact that people take up less space.

[Gigachad]

I agree it's a fairly common issue but I feel like it's not an impossible issue to solve. A person and a bike is still massively smaller than a person in an SUV. The system is basically designed with just enough capacity to barely work. But I feel like if we really wanted PT to be the obvious best choice it should be provisioned a bit over the least possible capacity.

[crazygringo]

I mean sure it's not impossible if you are willing to spend hundreds of billions of dollars to tunnel additional subway lines all over the place.

When they were built, these subway systems obviously were provisioned over expected capacity. But obviously, cities grow and nobody has a crystal ball to know what the population of a city will be 50 years from now.

The thing about subways is that adding significantly more capacity on an existing line isn't really possible if you are already running the trains as close as possible together as safety allows, which is often the case at rush hour. It's not like buses where you can just add more to the schedule.

[massysett]

The thing is, everyone can't have 4 empty seats to drive to work in New York City. There's only so much space on the streets and in the bridges and tunnels, and now there's a congestion charge on top of that.

[mejutoco]

In Berlin you just have some areas in wagons designated as bike areas. They are still cramped but you can be there with your bike. Plus you pay extra for your ticket to bring the bike.

[grayrest]

This depends on the metro. NYC generally doesn't care for the trains/subways so they only make a difference on buses.