Does anyone have any experience with the Caltrain bike lockers?

August 23, 2015 1:49 PM

I'm commuting to Palo Alto and am leaving my bike at the Caltrain station. After someone tried to steal my bike last week I'm thinking about renting a bike locker. Does anyone have any experience with these lockers? I can't find any reviews of them one way or another online. I'm a little worried that if I mail them a check for $58 I'll just never hear from them again.

Plus, the lockers at Palo Alto are stacked on top of one another. Can I request one of the lower ones? I'm not eager to lift my bike above my head every day.

As for alternatives, I'm not interested in bringing my bike on the train. I commute to the east bay on Caltrain + Bart on a rush hour bullet and don't need my bike on the other end. It would be really inconvenient and unnecessary to bring my bike on that commute.

I'm also considering the Bikestation in the Caltrain station, which I can find some reviews online for, but I would prefer the lower price and privacy of the locker if that's a reasonable option.

posted by crazy with stars to Travel & Transportation around Palo Alto, CA (7 answers total)

> I'm a little worried that if I mail them a check for $58 I'll just never hear from them again.

That's an unreasonable fear.

Check for availability at your station, follow instructions, and be prepared to wait a little while, but they're otherwise trustworthy.

At one time I rented two of them at once, one at each end of the train trip. I remember it as among my best commutes ever.
posted by the Real Dan at 2:37 PM on August 23, 2015

You say "I'm commuting to Palo Alto" and then later "I commute to the east bay", which makes no sense. Which is from and which is to?
posted by w0mbat at 9:44 PM on August 23, 2015

Response by poster: East bay to Palo Alto.

Does it make a difference for this question?
posted by crazy with stars at 4:45 AM on August 24, 2015

If you're commuting East Bay to Palo Alto and don't need your bike at the other end, shouldn't you be investigating the bike storage options at the starting East Bay station, rather than Palo Alto? Maybe the locker configurations would be different there. I doubt you can request a lower locker just for preference, since I'm sure no one wants to lift their bike into a higher locker every day but half of the renters necessarily have to.
posted by serelliya at 10:24 AM on August 24, 2015

Response by poster: The bike is in Palo Alto and does not go to the East Bay. It exists purely to take me from the Caltrain station to my office and back. Hence the question asking about Caltrain lockers in Palo Alto and not BART lockers in the East Bay.

I can easily imagine a world where the Caltrain staff respected locker preferences if possible. They might not, it's true, but that's why I asked the question.
posted by crazy with stars at 1:15 PM on August 24, 2015

Have you called yet? My understanding is that the lockers are basically always full and there's a really long waiting list to get one. If you call, they could probably also tell you whether you'd be able to request a ground-level one specifically, too.
posted by Joey Buttafoucault at 5:49 PM on August 24, 2015

When I rented a Caltrain locker a few years ago it was fine, with no real waiting list for my station. I renewed once and it was easy by mail, and ending the lease was also quick and easy by mail. At that time the rental paperwork said they would try to honor preferences for lower level lockers but at my station there was only one level so I have no experience with that.

I never had a problem with theft or vandalism and I never saw any evidence of problems with the other lockers at my station. The only quirk is that Caltrans may occasionally open the lockers to make sure there's actually a bike (or nothing) inside, since they are some of the cheapest storage in the Bay Area and they don't want people stashing random crap in them.
posted by Quietgal at 8:25 PM on August 25, 2015