Amtrak Cuts Bicycle Capacity Between Chicago and Milwaukee
Back in May 2016, Amtrak introduced roll-on service for bicycles on its Hiawatha Service between Chicago and Milwaukee. I went to Cream City for the ribbon cutting.
The new service eliminated the need for passengers to go through the hassle and expense of checking a boxed bike – partially dismantling it, boxing it, and reassembling it – for what’s only about a 90-minute trip. Instead, for a mere $5 surcharge each way passengers simply could roll their bikes up to the luggage car, where a staffer would hang it on a vertical bike rack.
However, five days ago a poster on the r/chibike Reddit group said they were having trouble adding a bike to their Hiawatha fare. “I tried to book a ticket to Milwaukee, and no matter which date/time I chose (one week/month/year in advance), purchasing a bike reservation was always ‘SOLD OUT.’”
They called Amtrak customer service and were told “train-side bike service” is no longer available on the Hiawatha. The customer assistant said the only option nowadays is to box your bike and check it for $10 each way.
“Really disappointing,” the Redditor said. “I figured I’d post here so others don’t have to spend time trying to find out how to book a bike reservation.”
Three different Streetsblog Chicago readers contacted us about the Reddit discussion, which has drawn over 20 comments. One of the readers told us that in early July he and his girlfriend hit a snag when they tried to bring their unboxed bike on the Hiawatha. Even though they bought their tickets with roll-on bike service back in May, conductors at both stations seemed confused. However, they eventually let the customers carry their bikes on and put them in an empty railcar.
“There was no bike car on either train, just the unused cafe car,” the reader told Streetsblog. “One conductor sarcastically said something about throwing our bikes in the river. I guess it was all in good fun?”
But the reader said some friends from Chicago recently attended the Riverwest 24 bike race in Milwaukee’s Riverwest neighborhood and couldn’t get get their bikes on the train at all. “They booked Amtrak tickets with bikes for Friday morning. But that morning, they got an email saying their tickets would not be honored. They had to scramble to figure out Metra to Kenosha and get picked up from there. They ended up leaving their bikes in Milwaukee and having a friend drive the bikes back a few days later.”
The Streetsblog reader was planning a bike ride to Milwaukee with friends over Labor Day weekend and taking Amtrak back the next day. “But I’m not really sure what to do now,” he said. “I’ve taken my bike on the train multiples times, pre- and post-COVID and have never really had issues, but I guess they’re changing things for the worse.” He asked if Streetsblog could dig deeper to find out what’s going on.
“Unfortunately, the Non-powered Control Units [non-powered railcars from which a train can be operated] we have used to increase bicycle capacity on the Hiawatha Service have not been reliable,” Amtrak spokesperson Marc Magliari told Streetsblog. “Therefore we’ve made the difficult decision to reduce capacity to what we believe we can carry in the body of the trains, unless or until we have a higher confidence level in these 40-year-old vehicles.”
On the bright side, Magliari said it’s not a permanent change. “The Hiawatha Service trains will also be getting the Amtrak Midwest “Venture” cars you have been seeing on downstate Illinois, Michigan and Missouri trains, with bike racks in every coach. That is truly the way forward.”
According to the High Speed Rail Alliance, each Venture car has a luggage rack that can hold three bikes vertically.
“The reliability issue with the NPCU’s has also cost us checked baggage on the Hiawatha trains, which affects all potential passengers, cyclists and otherwise,” Magliari said.
Well there you have it, Redditors and others who would like to take a bike on the Hiawatha Service. It’s unfortunate that Amtrak management has chosen to temporarily reduce bike capacity on the Hiawatha due to unreliable luggage cars, without sufficiently informing employees, let alone customers.
But it’s good news that Hiawatha cars will eventually have three-bike racks. Hopefully it won’t take too long to get them.
In the meantime, if you need to transport a bicycle between Chicago and Milwaukee and you enjoy bike touring, here’s an alternative to boxing your cycle or driving that’s pretty fun. Take your bicycle on Chicagoland’s fairly bike-friendly Metra commuter railroad’s Union Pacific North line to its Kenosha, WI, terminus, and then bicycle a few hours to downtown Milwaukee.
The post Ufortunately, Amtrak has cut bicycle capacity on Hiawatha Service. But bike-friendly Venture cars are coming. appeared first on Streetsblog Chicago.
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source https://chi.streetsblog.org/2023/08/05/annoyingly-amtrak-has-cut-bicycle-capacity-on-hiawatha-service-but-bike-friendly-venture-cars-are-coming
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