ROLE OF BICYCLES IN PUBLIC TRANSPORTATION ACCESS

Bicycles play a vital role in access and egress for rail and express bus services in Japan and northwestern Europe as well as in a growing number of communities in the United States. Suburbanization has been a driving force for the growth of bicycle-transit linkage. In many suburban towns in Japan, West Germany, Denmark, and the Netherlands, 25 to 50 percent of rail station access trips and up to 20 percent of station egress trips are made by bicycle. The number of trips involving a combination of bicycles and public transportation has quadrupled in Japan and doubled in Denmark since the early 1970s. In the United States, high bicycle theft rates have restrained similar growth except for transit systems that have made special provisions for bicycle access. Significant use of bicycles for transit access is found only where bicycle theft rates are relatively low or where secure bicycle parking has been provided at transit stops. The evolution of transit access systems is discussed and park-and-ride versus bike-and-ride transit access are compared with regard to capital and operating costs, air pollution and energy use, impacts on transit ridership, implications for transit stop siting, and other factors. It is concluded that American transit agencies could substantially increase suburban transit use without increased operating costs by improving bicycle-transit integration. Bike-and-ride development is far more cost-effective than park-and-ride development.