Amtrak, Shake Shack Bringing Back the Bike Rack

Actually, many bike racks, but we went with rhyme over accuracy.

A buncha bike racks have come online in busy sections of Philadelphia this week, which is good news for train commuters and people with a hankering for a burger:

30th St Station Construction Project Wraps Up, Bringing More Bike Parking
We've learned that the plaza construction project snarling the west side of 30th Street Station for more than a year has wrapped up. Part of the new plaza is bike parking for roughly 100 bikes. You can read a report from MOTU on the project here.

The construction on the east side continues, but should be wrapping up soon and will include the installation of six bike corrals, jumping the total bike parking available at 30th Street Station above 150 spots.

Center City Shake Shack Bike Corral Is Installed

Photo courtesy of Shake Shack and SHIFT_Design

Meanwhile, on 20th & Sansom, the Shake Shack bike corral is installed! This is the first bike corral in Philadelphia which a business purchased themselves. Big kudos to Shake Shack for its initiative (and prudence) in courting customers arriving by bicycle. And a second round of kudos for being good business neighbors by expanding the availability of bike parking in a section of Center City that definitely needs it.

We're not sure what they'll do with all those kudos, but they probably go well with a milkshake.

Success! Amtrak Commits to Improve Bike Parking at 30th Street Station

No more lonely or improvisational bike parking at 30th St

Your voice was heard! As we reported earlier this month, bike parking at Amtrak's third busiest station has been seriously constrained. Spurred by the 184 people who signed our petition, we have been in a dialogue with Amtrak staff about the issue. Amtrak recently made the following comments and commitments:

First, Amtrak explained that bike parking is "not ideal....[due to] two major improvement projects happening at the station right now – West Plaza Project and Installation of a Sidewalk Canopy System. The two projects are limiting the amount of space that we have around the station for bike parking."

Amtrak then committed take the following actions:

• When the West Plaza Project on the 30th Street side is completed in November, it will include spaces for at least 80 bikes. They will accomplish this by installing ten new racks (each rack can hold 8-10 bikes). 
• For the 29th Street side of the station, Amtrak will install six bike racks that each hold 8 bikes, for 48 total spaces. (Special thanks to the Mayor's Office of Transportation and Utilities, aka MOTU, for providing Amtrak with the six racks.)
• MOTU and University City District (UCD) will assist Amtrak in the removal of abandoned bikes.
• To address the incidences of Vespas and motorcycles parking at the bike racks, the Amtrak Police Department is stepping up enforcement and will ticket or tow them if they can’t get the owner to move the motor vehicle.

We thank Amtrak for being responsive to bicyclists' concerns and pledging to improve bike parking at 30th Street Station. A big thanks also to MOTU and UCD for stepping in to help Amtrak remedy the problem. We are looking forward to seeing these improvements implemented shortly, we hope in time for the Thanksgiving travel weekend.

Sign Our Petition To Improve Bike Parking at 30th Street Station

We've written before about the bike parking problem at 30th Street Station. The station, managed by Amtrak, is woefully and embarrassingly unaccommodating to travelers arriving by bicycle.

Amtrak needs to hear from station users that bike parking is important and Amtrak needs to provide more, and better, bike parking.

Please sign our petition which states:

30th Street Station must be better equipped and managed to accommodate passengers who want to combine biking with their train or rail trip. 30th Street Station should be able to accommodate all users of its facility and needs ample, safe and high quality bicycle parking to better meet demand. The current condition is unbefitting of your third busiest rail station. Please address this situation as soon as possible by:

1. Adding more high quality bike racks that meet City specifications to both sides of the station;
2. Enforcing the City's sidewalk and bike parking regulations;
3. Promptly removing abandoned bicycles. 

We visited 30th Street Station this Tuesday at 3 pm. We counted 78 bikes on the station's east side, and spaces for 38. Some of those spaces were lost to scooters and abandoned bicycles:

Three bikes per rack, because motorcycles and abandoned bikes (on left) are taking up valuable space

The station is under construction, but we want detailed assurances of how Amtrak will improve the bike parking situation, and that they will maintain that parking so that commuters are not forced to lock to anything vertical, like temporary wooden parking signs:

Or whatever these metal bars were supposed to be for:

Sign our petition asking Amtrak to improve and maintain the bicycle parking at the East Coast's third busiest train station.

Amtrak's Bike Parking Situation at 30th St Station Is Embarrassing

This Monday morning some of our staff went through 30th Street Station on their way to Harrisburg. We arrived by bicycle, because bicycling the first and last mile of your journey is ohmygosh the new black. Here is the bike parking situation we discovered:

Abandoned bicycles and scooters taking up precious rack space

Desperate parking times call for desperate parking measures

The bicycle parking at 30th Street Station falls under the auspices of Amtrak. Bicyclists frequenting the station have been dealing with significantly less bicycle parking ever since the station's 30th Street side went under construction in late 2012. Amtrak had told us back in November 2012 that temporary parking would be placed on the 29th Street side to compensate for the lost parking. But that never came to pass.

The slow accumulation of abandoned bicycles, and the lack of enforcement (or dedicated space elsewhere) for Vespa parking, has made the situation worse. Monday, we found the wave rack on the 29th Street side bearing computer paper notes warning bicyclists not to park there this week (with no explanation).

If the papers flew off in the wind, what would be the consequences for unknowingly parking a bicycle here?

Our emails to Amtrak have so far gone unanswered.

Amtrak's seeming indifference to passengers arriving by bicycle is making 30th Street Station look like a retrograde outlier compared to other transit hubs in Philadelphia and elsewhere in this country.

We asked Amtrak to remedy this situation by taking the following three actions:

1. Tag and remove abandoned bicycles;
2. Provide Vespas with their own parking area and enforce bike racks as bicycle-only parking;
3. Add more temporary bike racks to accommodate the current severe unmet demand.

30th Street Station is too important of a transportation hub to so poorly accommodate travelers looking to begin or end their longer journeys on bicycle.

Station Square Project Leaves Out Bicycle Transportation

How did it happen? Located between the University of Pennsylvania and Center City, the Station Square project (subject to renaming by UCD's contest) is transforming a parking area into public space in front of 30th Street Station. Great attention to detail was put in to encourage pedestrian traffic. But when it came to addressing the needs of bicyclists, Station Square fails to meet even the most basic needs of cyclists, such as the need for a low stress bike route around chaotic train station and additional bicycle parking.

The picture below shows the improvements being made; the plan was greatly scaled down due to the of unwillingness of state and local transportation officials to consider effective traffic calming on Market Street. Crossing the street will not be much easier than it is today, still Station Square offers new public space in an area starved for it.

But the lack of consideration for bikes is troubling. It will still be difficult to enter 30th Station from Market Street going westbound; you'll have to navigate through car traffic that is struggling to get onto the 76 and 676 ramps. (A bike signal would help give bikes a few seconds lead time). The new contraflow lane on S 30th St offered the promise of good access from Walnut and Chestnut Streets, unfortunately northbound cyclists who arrive at Market St have no legal way to cross it to access 30th Station's entrances.

The lack of consideration is not exclusive this project; walk your bike seems to be the trend in urban public right of ways such as the new Penn Park (on the bridge ramps.) Station Square leaves plenty of leeway of motor vehicles and a few design touches would have made this space a safe bikeway and bike parking location that wouldn't interfere with the pedestrian plaza feel of the site.