Tess Kalinowski of The Toronto Star claims that providing bike infrastructure through transit is expensive. GO Transit is putting in secured and sheltered parking throughout the system. The TTC is putting in bus bike racks on its entire fleet. The price comes out in the range of a couple thousand per spot. Tess gives some "shocking" numbers, but fails to put them in the context of the alternative - the cost of parking a bulky car:
$1,800 per cyclist using GO Transit's new secure bike lock-ups in Hamilton and Burlington, $3,700 per cyclist using GO's new bike shelters, and $1.44 million to put bike racks on about 1,600 TTC buses.
So all we know is that there is a long-term infrastructure cost of thousands of dollars. This a cost that is spread out over the lifetime of the parking. That comes to around $100 a year for some secure bike lock-ups that will surely last at least 15 years. So put in perspective it's not that much.
A GO customer can choose to arrive by car or by bike. Which mode do you think costs GO more? A car parking spot equals one GO customer as much as one bike parking spot does. Almost all Go parking is surface parking. It's impossible to come up with a definite cost of surface parking because it includes the land prices. If GO needs to expand its parking it will either have to purchase expensive land surrounding the prime real estate of its stations or it will have to build parking structures. Surface parking varies quite a bit, but we do know that the cost of structured parking can cost somewhere between $10,000 and $25,000 (according to the High Cost of Free Parking by Donald Shoup). Let's just say the cost of additional parking for GO could end up being as high as $25,000 per spot.
In this respect having a GO customer arrive by bike instead of by car represents big savings for GO. So do GO a favour and ignore unbalanced reporting like Tess'. Biking is cheap and saves everybody money when more of us shift our travel mode.
Comments
Antony (not verified)
As pointed out in this
Wed, 09/23/2009 - 08:59As pointed out in this Spacing Toronto discussion, there's a very easy way to compare car and bike parking:
http://www.citytv.com/toronto/citynews/news/local/article/8751–harper-mcguinty-announce-plans-to-revamp-go-transit
“About $175 million will be spent on creating about 6,800 new parking spaces at 12 GO Transit stations”
That’s $25,735.29 per spot. Compared to only $1,800 for the
locked/sheltered bike parking spots.
And motorists pay nothing, subsidized by GO ticket sales and our tax dollars.
Whose parking is expensive?
Antony (not verified)
Of course, that bit of
Wed, 09/23/2009 - 09:00Of course, that bit of journalism came from ibiketo's Vic, who will be by shortly...
Rob Prouse (not verified)
Cost of the GO Parking Garages
Wed, 09/23/2009 - 09:25I notice that she doesn't seem worried about the cost of the new parking garage that GO built in Burlington because their two huge parking lots weren't big enough. That garage with 600 spaces cost $20 million. That is $33,333 per spot!
That and all they have for bikes there are a couple of exposed bike racks.
Rantwick (not verified)
very good
Wed, 09/23/2009 - 10:03Thanks for that post, and the comments after. It's nice to have some ammunition when people start carping about stuff like this.
anthony
the same outrage against the Toronto Star here...
Wed, 09/23/2009 - 10:11http://www.raisethehammer.org/blog.asp?id=1513
GO Busrider (not verified)
Have you tried the GO, or just like to whine?
Wed, 09/23/2009 - 17:02Have you actually tried to combine the GO train or bus or TTC bus with your bike? Her point seems to be that they are empty of bikes.
herb
I've combined transit and cycling many times.
Wed, 09/23/2009 - 18:01I've combined transit and cycling many times. Even if I hadn't that doesn't invalidate an argument.
The point is that cycling is cheap and providing infrastructure for cycling is cheap. And comparing this to the costs of providing infrastructure for cars was completely missing from the article.
GO has recognized that cycling to GO stations is increasing by 20% per year and they'd like to meet and encourage that demand. GO is also planning for an increase in car parking in the future hence the need to build all these parking structures. But if they can reduce the need for $25,000 parking spots with providing $2000 bike parking spots, why not?
I've used the GO bus bike racks, I've travelled to various GO stops and I've seen that they are far from empty. Maybe you should go do a complete survey and then tell us the results before you make blanket statements.
chephy (not verified)
Yes, I have used GO bike
Wed, 09/23/2009 - 19:52Yes, I have used GO bike racks. But I won't count on using them regularly as an option, because there is no guarantee that they'll be available. If a couple more cyclists show up for the same bus and fill up the two-bike rack, I might be out of luck and miss my bus, and have to wait for an hour for the next one. I think there needs to be an option of reserving a bike spot for a particular GO bus; maybe a small fee could even go along with it, to make sure people are not reserving the spot "just in case" and then showing up bikeless. Or you could have a fine for "false reservation". Whatever. The point is that in order for cyclists to start depending on a GO bus for multimodal transportation (and thus bringing their bikes on board regularly), they need to know in advance that there will be a spot for their bikes on the bus (or that there won't be, and make changes to their travel plans accordingly).
It's not an issue for TTC buses, because even if the rack is full, it's not a long wait till the next bus comes along, and if it is a long wait, then it's not rush hour, so you could probably bring your bike inside the bus anyway. But it's different for GO buses since they're much less frequent and bikes are not allowed inside under any circumstances.
electric
Exactly
Thu, 09/24/2009 - 00:34It's like having a bus with only two seats that comes every hour and visits 40 stops on the route.
I don't want to get stuck at Union or York Mills waiting... and waiting...
The parking at the stations is the best and cheapest idea if GO refuses to do real multi modal, secure and secured parking would be the best... that way I could leave a bike overnight there(Union or York Mills) and one at the destination station also without worrying if my ride will be there in the morning.
Tom Flaherty
Comfortably Dumb
Wed, 09/23/2009 - 22:59The media's negative spin on cycling is seemingly intended to feed into public naiveté instead of providing an otherwise valuable source of information.
I cancelled my subscription to the Star after the 'War on the Car' campaign last spring.
It's like the Star purposely reduces their readers as “tweak” worthy, because stirring the pot sells more papers then actually telling a story without a crafted bias.
As Anthony points out in his post, if you compare any cycling related expense to that of a car, the difference is clear.
simplicius2wheels
I cancelled my subscription
Thu, 09/24/2009 - 10:51Good idea. So did I right now.
SunnySide1
Go transit
Thu, 09/24/2009 - 12:34The reference to the cost of bike racks on buses in the article is for the TTC, not GO. It was phrased in such a way as to muddy the reference (excellent journalism there) but there is no amount given for the cost of outfitting GO buses with bikeracks. I would suspect that the GO bus fleet is smaller than the TTC bus fleet and therefore outfitting those buses would be rather less expensive in total.
Clearly outfitting the GO buses with cycle racks is more for effect than for utility. There is simply no real way to accommodate multiple cyclists on infrequent buses without a major overhaul of the system (eg bike trailers for example). Realistically that is a long way off.
I think GO has done an excellent job with the new, highly visible cycling racks at the train stations. They've at least tripled the amount of bike parking space at my station this summer and it looks as full as it did this time last year. Build it and they will come. Even in the suburbs.
Seymore Bikes
TRAIN-ing Wheels
Thu, 09/24/2009 - 14:07Some cities in Northern Europe have train cars dedicated to cyclists. If Go or Via had enough support for something similar here I don't see why it wouldn't work.
http://80.92.89.19/upload/sports_sante/train_velo_cfl.jpg
SunnySide1
I'm hopeful we'll get there
Thu, 09/24/2009 - 15:47I'm hopeful we'll get there eventually. I like the idea of dedicated train cars- the more facilities are available and the more accessible they are, the more people will use them and the more demand there is. What will probably happen (at first anyway) is a partial implementation which results in the same problem as the bike racks on the GO buses- unpredictable service and therefore an unwillingness to use it if you're on any kind of a schedule.
As a regular commuter, having a bike at each end of my train ride and using the GO bike racks + Union Bike station is working for me brilliantly. Plus it means I don't have to muscle my bike onto and off of trains, so I think I prefer it to the bike train car option - although I'll admit to that being MUCH more flexible and therefore better for a lot of people.
anthony
Bike Parking: For reference
Thu, 09/24/2009 - 14:23I called the city today. the current post and rings cost about $50/each, plus installation (about $100 labour) so each post and ring costs about $150 installed. That is a bargain, but these are not the covered spots that GO are building. Toronto's post and rings are intended for short term use, ie a couple of hours, whereas the bike parking at the GO stations are intended for all day or perhaps even overnight use, therefore the higher costs.
The TTC has committed to also building covered, or even secure, bike parking at it's new stations; and also at stations which are being renovated, or at least as much as practical.
Cycling advocates have been bugging GO and the TTC for years to do this, and I think that Metrolinx has helped them to see that providing more and more car parking is much more expensive than providing the same amount of bike parking. So the TTC and GO are doing this to encourage more public transit use without incurring the expense of providing as much car parking.
Feeder routes, ie the local buses to bring passengers to subways and GO stations, are also very expensive to operate, and incur a high cost per rider. By exchanging some of the demand on the feeder routes by encouraging at least some people to ride a bike, the local bus system also gets a savings.
Metrolinx ran the numbers, but never made its analysis public. However, that is where I suspect that the motivation for all of this new bike parking came from.