The ideal in a busy city with distances to travel and the vagaries of weather is multimode transport options that available during peak times as well as the rest. Ride to the station, catch the train, ride away. Or pick up the train on the way home if the weather closes in.zebee wrote:They have bike hooks on the Newcastle train but few use them because they are painful to put your bike on if you have a heavyish bike or luggage and/or aren't a tall young man who can lift an awkward thing into a tight space. That looks a bit easier to manage than the ones I've seen here but still requires you to be able to lift your bike that high.
I can't use them because I have a 'bent which doesn't lend itself to that and even if I was using a diamond frame bike my dodgy right shoulder won't take me lifting something that heavy above shoulder height.
In Switzerland I saw half-length carriages with the bikes on one side on butcher-hook arrangements. This is allows for many bikes and they can be got on and got off extremely quickly and so lends itself to multi-mode transport even during peak hours.
However it does require walk through access from adjacent carriages (and, possibly, extending platforms a bit). Therefore not available retro-fitting to a lot of existing infrastructure. Perths existing stock would not allow access to the carriage except by exiting the passenger carriage, running the platform, getting in, unhooking the bike and then taking it out through the doors. All of which defeats the major advantage - the capacity to move people onto and off trains in quick time at all hours. Full length carriages with both seating and, say, an end section for bikes plus door could work I guess.
Perths Mandurah line looks to have been designed with extending platforms without disrupting services in mind. Maybe the same goes for the northern line.
