Amtrak offers onboard bike storage in Michigan

Amtrak is offering limited onboard bicycle storage on three routes between Michigan and Chicago to accommodate requests, Great Lakes Echo reported yesterday. 

“We are receiving lots of requests from the cycling community, both the consumers and the advocacy community, and we’ve been wanting to be able to accommodate that,” Derrick James, Amtrak’s senior manager of state government affairs, told the news outlet.

With a reservation, riders on the Chicago-Grand Rapids, Chicago-Lansing-Port Huron and Chicago-Detroit-Pontiac Amtrak routes now can store bikes in an open area at the end of one of the coaches.

Each train is limited to the number of stored bikes. On many other routes, bikes are carried on to trains or must be loaded into a baggage car. 

“We are working to procure new coach cars for our services right now along with the other Midwest states,” Jeff Martin, an analyst for the office of the Michigan Department of Transportation, told the news outlet. “But the new cars will have bike racks on them and then will offer even more bikes than we currently handle.”