Here’s another milestone we look forward to adding to the history of bicycle access on transit: Caltrain adds a third bike car on all Bombardier trains.

At Thursday’s Caltrain Board of Directors meeting, the head of Caltrain, Mike Scanlon, announced that they were committed to adding an extra bike car to all Bombardier trains. With the recent purchase of additional cars, they will now be adding an extra car to all Bombardier train sets, moving from five to six. Three of the six cars on each Bombardier train will now have space for bikes.

Caltrain operates two different kinds of train sets: Bombardier and Gallery. With the purchase of 16 Bombardier cars, the proposal is to add a sixth car to each existing Bombardier set. This will significantly increase the number of both regular seats and bike space per train, with a total of 72 bike spaces. (The Gallery sets will remain the same and continue to run five-car trains with a total of 80 bike spaces each).

The addition will significantly improve your ability to consistently bring your bike on Caltrain during commute hours as well as everyone’s ability to find a seat, which is especially important as Caltrain continues to experience record growth in ridership.

From @Caltrain_News: Bike advocates speak up about the purchase of 16 additional cars at October’s Caltrain Board meeting.

The Caltrain Board will vote on the final contract to rehabilitate the cars in February, and we anticipate that the additional cars will be added to the fleet quickly afterwards. Thank you to the leadership of the Caltrain staff for being responsive to the many people who have experienced getting bumped off Caltrain due to lack of bike capacity. Take a moment to say thanks or tweet at @Caltrain_News.

We will update you once there is more news regarding the timeline for implementation. We are grateful for the many people who have spoken up on this issue, and will continue to advocate for better bike access to Caltrain.