Thomas Breen photo
City transit chief Doug Hausladen, CT DOT Public Transportation Chief Rich Andreski, Bike Walk CT ED Susan Smith, and city cycling advocate Paul Hammer at Thursday’s “Bikes On Board” presser.
New Haveners who commute to Hartford by train can now bring their bicycles on board with them.
They can also now use one restroom on each train, and no longer have to hold it in until the end of their commute.
That was the upshot During a Thursday morning press conference at Track 4 of New Haven’s Union Station.
Richard Andreski, the public transportation chief of the state Department of Transportation, announced that each CTrail Hartford Line train will allow passengers to store up to 20 bicycles on board starting on Saturday.
The Hartford Line: Now allowing up to 20 trains on board each ride.
Andreski said the bikes will be stored in a bikes-only passenger car at the end of each CTrail Hartford Line train. Commuters will need to drop off their bikes in the bikes-only car when they board, and then will be able to retrieve their bikes when they disembark.
Andreski also said that the Hartford Line, which had previously closed all on-board bathrooms because of handicap accessibility concerns, now has one bathroom open aboard each train. (More on that later in the article.)
Andreski said this bikes-only car is a temporary solution for bike access on the Hartford Line, which launched on June 16 and makes 17 round trips between New Haven and Hartford every day, as well as 12 round trips between New Haven and Springfield every day.
He said the department is currently working on a more permanent solution of installing bike racks on each of the Hartford Line trains, which will allow up to 12 bikes per train. He also said that this Hartford Line bike access only applies to the state DOT’s CTrail Hartford Line cars. Around half of each day’s Hartford Line trains are operated by Amtrak, and those trains still do not allow passengers to bring on board standard-size bicycles.
“We reached out to customers to hear their concerns and get their input on what to do better,” Andreski said about the new bike program. He said some customers, like New Haven bicycle advocate Paul Hammer, told the DOT that it needs to allow cyclists to bring their bikes on board.
Hammer.
“When I heard that the Hartford Line was being launched and didn’t hear anything about bicycle access, I wrote a note to Rich Andreski,” said Hammer, a Fair Haven resident and the former president of the Connecticut Bicycle Coalition. He said Andreski set up a meeting with him in early July to inspect the train cars and come up with a solution for getting bikes on board. One month later, Hammer said, the state DOT has come up with an interim solution.
“I’m thrilled,” Hammer said. He said this development tells Connecticut rail commuters that they don’t “have to ride their bikes from New Haven to Hartford. They can ride their bikes in New Haven and Hartford.”
He said he has been travelling to Hartford a lot recently as he has been planning a 20th anniversary bike ride and concert for Hartford’s stretch of the Connecticut Freedom Trail. Now, he said, he’ll be able to bring his bicycle up to Hartford without having to drive.
City transit chief Doug Hausladen said this new bikes-on-board policy expands the non-motor vehicle “catchment area” for city residents who commute to Hartford by rail by up to 5 miles: meaning that more and more people will be able to get from New Haven to Hartford without having to put foot in a car.
He said the development is in line with other alternative transportation policies the city is working on, including enhancing the Vision Trail on Long Wharf, improving the pedestrian and bicycle connection between Union Station and the State Street Station, and adding the state’s first bicycle-protected intersection on Orange Street as part of phase two of the city’s Downtown Crossing project.
Bathrooms on Board
Andreski.
Andreski also said that the Hartford Line now allows passengers to use the restrooms on board the trains.
When the rail line launched two months ago, the state DOT kept closed all of the restrooms aboard the CTrail Hartford Line trains because the restrooms are not handicap-accessible.
Andreski said that earlier this summer, a passenger with Chrohn’s disease, which is an inflammatory bowel disease, complained to the Federal Rail Association (FRA) about the lack of bathrooms on board the trains.
He said the FRA studied the Hartford Line service, and determined that the state DOT should open one restroom per train until new trains with fully handicap-accessible bathrooms are installed later this year and in early 2019.
“Our observation is that ridership is creeping upward,” Andreski said about overall usage of the new train service. He said the DOT plans to have a second track installed between Hartford and Windsor by October this year, which he said should improve service reliability for Hartford Line trains running north of Hartford.
Click on the Facebook Live video below to watch the full presser.
Yea!!!!! Now all they need is a bar car.