The Toronto Transit Commission is running a pilot project of putting bike racks on busses allowing cyclists to easily combine cycling and transit in making trips across the City. You can see more information on this on the TTC's web site: Rack it and Rocket!. The TTC has not yet made the decision on whether to expand this program to other routes across the city so there is still time to try the service out and send in your comments via the Rack-it and Rocket: Bike rack pilot survey.

This weekend you will get a chance to try using the bike racks at the free Bike and Bus Picnic on Sunday July 23rd, 2006 at 10:00 am hosted by the City of Toronto's Cycling Ambassadors. Details of the event are quoted in the announcement below:

Free T-shirts and Fun at the Bike and Bus Picnic

Join the City of Toronto Cycling Ambassadors on Sunday, July 23rd 10:00am - 2:00pm at Bathurst Station for a free picnic and a chance to get a free Cycling and Transit T-shirt
All you'll need is bus fare and your bicycle

There will be snacks and plenty of cycling information ....AND
we'll be handing out a free t-shirt to all cyclists who use the bike racks on the Bathurst bus
Discover how fun and easy it is to combine cycling and transit.

Most major North American Cities have bike racks on their busses. Toronto is just catching up. I was in Vancouver recently where all of their diesel busses had the bike racks on the front. I was glad to see that they were quite well used. In fact the Vancouver transit authority Bike & Bus web site has the following warning "Some of the busier routes such as to the ferry terminals or along the Broadway corridor may experience congestion on the bike racks."

Vancouver's fleet of diesel busses are equipped with bike racks. I saw them often filled with one or two bikes.

The TTC's pilot project has the racks on busses on 7 routes. You can see the routes on the following map. Rack it and Rocket! routes map. You can also see videos of how to load and unload your bike and download a brochure on the program on the Rack it and Rocket! web site

The report on the pilot project is due this at the end of the summer. Once that is presented to the Councillors on the TTC they will decide whether to continue the program and expand it to the rest of the routes in the City. The best way to ensure that this happens is to try the racks out and fill in the survey. This Sunday would be a good day to do it.