*AMTRAK* Folding Bikes Now Officially Allowed on all trains

And now, relish the blow-by-blow version of the coup ... and three cheers for David Torok! This article reproduced with thanks from the League of American Bicyclists magazine American Bicyclist, March/April 2007.

How One Bicyclist Closed AMTRAK’s Folding Bike Policy Loophole Philadelphia

City to Suburb commuter Dave Torok planned to take his folding bike on Amtrak's Keystone service to get to his workplace in Malvern PA. He occasionally did this on SEPTA Regional Rail but he found that the door-to-door trip was a mind-numbing 90 minute commute.

However, he found out that using Amtrak's faster service would take virtually the same amount of time as driving; about 60 minutes. He planned to do the multi-modal commute 3+times per week, reducing his gas usage, replacing aggravation on the Schuylkill Expressway with an exhilarating bike ride, and promoting transit.

Amtrak Keystone does not allow full size bicycles, so he bought a folding bicycle expressly to enable this commute. Amtrak's website specifies that folding bicycles are allowed on "certain rail cars" although it fails to mention any specifics.

The inaugural morning trip worked well, a very pleasant Amtrak train crew had no problems with his folding bike on the AM Keystone Train out to Paoli, PA, even helping hold the door at the bottom of the staircase at 30th Station in Philadelphia.

However, on the way back in the evening, he was DENIED boarding, with the conductor giving him at least 5 different reasons why you cannot bring a folding bike on board despite their posted policy.

Dave followed up with the Station Manager at 30th Street Station who said that he talked to the rail manager and also to a higher-up boss, that they looked through the "Conductor Service Rule Book", and said that folding bikes are not permitted on the Amfleet cars used on the Keystone Line.

Puzzled, because he got an answer to a question that he didn't ask, he sent a letter to Amtrak CEO Kummant and filed a Freedom of InformationAct (FOIA) request to see if they have any public information regarding folding bikes. He also joined the Bicycle Coalition of Greater Philadelphia who sent their own letter to customer service BCGP asking that Amtrak work to clarify their folding bike policy.

Customer Service sent a response to BCGP which stated that folding bikes are permitted on ALL trains and that they would look into the wording of the bicycle policy. However there was no indication that Amtrak would deal with the conductor.

Dave tried to take the train again. He showed the email to the conductor stating the policy allowed for folding bikes on all trains. The conductor maintained that folding bikes are not allowed at all, according to the "Conductor Service Rule Book," and that no policy or email would grant him access to that train. It looked like our efforts at Amtrak had failed. Meanwhile, customers who were using other trains had no problems bringing on a folding bike.

Dave continued to take his folding bike on the Amtrak train in the morning with the friendly crew and take SEPTA in the evening while waiting for some new information to arrive.

After more than a month, a corporate spokesperson replied to the letter sent to Mr. Kummant that repeated the vaguely-worded policy from the web site. Nor did the letter clarify the definition of "certain passenger cars" but his office did forward the response to the 30th Street Manager.

The FOIA request for the conductor's rule book was also slow to arrive. The request was granted after two full months of occasional status emails, but no actual policy information. Finally on May 7 Dave received the FOIA documentation which included an attached excerpt of the Service Rule Book via email. The Rule Book confirmed that bicycles were prohibited in passenger cars, but it had no reference to folding bicycles at all.

A second file was attached. It was a policy change update effective May 4 2007 that allowed folding bikes on board all trains and was to be inserted into the service rule book.

This simple change gave cyclists the clout on to bring their folding bike onto any Amtrak train in the country without the fear of being stranded over a technicality.

That same afternoon he received the policy update email Dave already had his folding bike at work. He brought his bike to the Paoli platform, service update printout in hand, with a little tension as to what might happen.

The same conductor who had denied boarding twice was there, but this time he simply allowed him to board, saying that he had received the policy update that morning.

Who are the folks in these pictures? Bike Friday Asia Ambassador Ruthy Kanagy reveals all:

On Oct 16 to 18, 2006, two of our international BF dealers visited the Bike Friday Factory: Mr. Yoshida 'man', assistant to Mr. Kataoka Jun in Takasaki, Japan, and Kai Fuchs, BF rep in Freiburg, Deutschland.

Man has taken his BF to Nepal, Costa Rica, England, and many other countries.

Kai has recruited a dozen German dealers who will start selling BF's, extending BF's presence in Europe greatly.

They saw how we build BF's in production, how the sales team interact with customer on the phone, the ordering process, kitting, sizing, saw how we align frame kits, sat in on a Sales meeting, met with Customer Service, marketing manager Hanna, went on the lunchride ('it's faast' said man).

They had dinner at Theresa and Alan Scholz's and we took them out to McMennamin's on the Willamette River.

We welcome all our BF dealers to visit and get acquainted with us - and yes, you can get here by Friday on a train!