Hamilton: General Service Discussion

[mdrejhon]

My question to you is: how far is the SoBi bike parking from the GO station?

They're installing a SoBi rack right there in front of the station.

Even if there wasn't, you can park a SoBi anywhere -- at any regular bike rack or pole. SoBi stations are optional.

Bikes have a GPS transmitter and parked bikes show up in map for others to use.

No worrying about full docks (like BIXI).

Instead of building multi-million dollar parking garages (or, more realistically, in addition to building multi-million dollar parking garages) I'd like to see Metrolinx plop down a couple of these at every GO station.

Excellent idea. They exist already, look at the GO bike shelter logo.
But they aren't enclosed:

(Credit: BlogTo)

GO already installs bike parking shelters at most GO stations, but they should enclose them in a Presto-locked enclosure to make people more comfortable using their own bikes. One GO bike station (Mimico? Forgot where) got vandalized with pigeonseed and got poop all over the bikes. This would solve that problem.

 

[DC83]

Thanks for the Interior Shots, mdrejhon

It does look great inside and I love the actual design of the station.

Is there a SoBi station there yet?

 

[mdrejhon]

Is there a SoBi station there yet?

They tweeted they are installing one. It may be there already.

It wasn't there on time at 6:45am, but it didn't matter -- SoBi allows you to dock at any regular station. I saw 3 SoBi bikes appear, so other GO commuters are using the SoBi+GO commute.
(Edit -- I think mine was the 4th)

 

[mdrejhon]

Photo was a little dorky due to framing, making me look almost like a kid (I'm 40s), but here's a twitter pic of my hybrid SoBi+GO commute, heading home from Hamilton Downtown GO.

 

[doady]

Why did they bother building these bike shelters? No one will use them anyways. We need to spend money on real methods of transportation not this nonsense. Bikes are just a fad.

 

[mdrejhon]

Why did they bother building these bike shelters? No one will use them anyways. We need to spend money on real methods of transportation not this nonsense. Bikes are just a fad.

Are you implying that you're the one who threw that birdseed into one of the bike shelters?

 

[vic]

There's also a fully enclosed/locked bike parking area at Hamilton GO Centre, but you have to pay for that. Not sure if they're planning to expand that too other stations.

 

[CDL.TO]

They also offer it at Burlington station.

 

[mdrejhon]

The West Harbour SoBi station is installed since a couple days ago.

I've seen the online map bounce from less than 4 bikes (before 6am) to way more than 10 bikes (after 8am)

It seems to be a very popular SoBi station, given daily commuters from West Harbour is still fairly low at the moment due to lack of parking & lack of train service until 2016-2017. There seems to be only about 100 morning commuters using West Harbor, as a rough guesstimate, I'm not sure if the 6:16am or 6:46am train is more popular (ugh...we need more trains, a 7:45am would be nice with a 9:00am Union arrival!). If only 100 morning commuters are initially using West Harbour, then possibly about 10% of them are using SoBi. Very impressive uptake of SoBi as a multi-modal Hamilton commute.

This number is very consistent percentage as with RaiseTheHammer's guesstimate that about 7% of SoBi's market (5,000 out of a population of 75,000 able-bodied people inside SoBi footprint) has signed up for a SoBi membership. (Almost anyone outside SoBi footprint would be driving to the GO station and need free parking -- thus going to Aldershot/Burlington as there is not yet free all-day parking at a GO station inside Hamilton's city boundaries -- yet. Until 2016.)

Currently 11 SoBi bikes parked at West Harbor GO this morning:

 

[WislaHD]

I'm interested in seeing those numbers grow (for both SoBi and GO).

Where can we learn of new SoBi station installations?

 

[mdrejhon]

Where can we learn of new SoBi station installations?

SoBi's twitter account announces them.

Right now there are 119 stations (50% more stations than Toronto) so everytime we see this number increment, I look through the SoBi twitter history to see where they showed up.

 

[aquateam]

There's also a fully enclosed/locked bike parking area at Hamilton GO Centre, but you have to pay for that. Not sure if they're planning to expand that too other stations.

So you pay for bike parking but vehicle parking is free?

 

[mdrejhon]

So you pay for bike parking but vehicle parking is free?

Vehicle parking isn't free at Hamilton Downtown GO station either.

Hamiltonians looking for free GO parking without driving to Aldershot/Burlington, need to wait until 2016 when the West Harbor parking garage is ready. Or 2019 for Stoney Creek GO parking.

 

[vic]

So you pay for bike parking but vehicle parking is free?

There's plenty of free bike parking at Hamilton GO too. In front of the station, and in the covered area by the bus platforms. The paid parking is just for the secure locker rooms (unfortunately, I can't seem to easily find out any info about those lockers on GO's website).

 

[mdrejhon]

For the first time I feasted my eyes on the massive SoBi rack at West Harbor GO. There's room to park up to about three dozen SoBi bikes here now!

Took the SoBi home from West Harbour today.

The West Harbour express train took only 56 minutes to go from Union to Hamilton. Nice! But the train was a mostly empty. Better marketing is needed for this precious resource of a special train.