Just wanted to let the board know that I tested VRE's new bike policy last week for two days from Leeland Road to L'Enfant Plaza. While I'm really happy that they have started becoming more bike friendly, I think there's still a long way to go. Here is what I found.....

1. The conductors need briefing on both the new policy and basic public relations training. They were neither knowledgeable about the policy or friendly toward it. If VRE wants success, the staff should be part of the process. If they don't want the policy to be successful, they have the perfect attitude. I had to ask each time to board and each time they had to laboriously consult their regulation sheet to "check" to see if my bike was allowed.

2. A progressive campaign to educate the general ridership of VRE would be useful. Honestly, I would have thought that people would have been generally more positive about the policy change, but instead I found that there was a generally negative vibe going on, including pointed questions to the conductor as to why I was allowed on the train with my bike. I had to ask the conductor to pass the policy sheet around. Crazily, the car was only about 30% full and no one was seated anywhere near me. It was grudgingly determined by the conductor and passengers that I was adhering to all regulations. The conductor on one train shrugged his shoulders and told the other riders (obviously long time regulars), "I don't know why 'they' decided to let people bring bikes on...doesn't make sense to me".

3. Work in coordination with Stafford and Fredericksburg tourism marketing and promote this as a new way to "see" the area. Bikes on VRE provide a connection to and through Stafford and F'Burg that bike riders on the East Coast Greenway, Allegany Passage and the C&O trail would welcome. In addition, tourists from DC could ride down to F'burg on Friday afternoon, stay at the new Courtyard in downtown, then ride back to DC on Monday am. Or, I know this is a crazy thought, but maybe VRE could even run a light consist train in and out on Saturday and Sundays that directly marketed bikes and tourism.

4. VRE should take a page from California and instead of implementing "slow freight train" policy, jump on the "progressive" train and lead the way...check this out from the new Caltrain policy....

Caltrain Expands Bike Capacity
Caltrain is done expanding the number of bike spaces on all their gallery bike cars - each gallery bike cars now have 40 bike slots each, up from 32 bike slots each. They are also expanding bike capacity on seven Bombardier bike cars to 24 bike slots each, up from 16. When that work is complete, the vast majority of their trains will have from 48 to 80 bike slots. This is a substantial improvement in the consistency of available bike spaces on trains. Learn more.

Those Caltrain cars look very similar to your VRE cars....

okay...enough said.

chris