GO Transit customers are growing increasingly frustrated with ever-growing crowds of food delivery bike couriers clogging up trains to and from Toronto on a daily basis.

Food delivery couriers have been a growing percentage of GO's rider base in recent years due to a combination of factors.

As bikes take up more and more space on trains, some fellow riders are growing frustrated with the delivery workers themselves, while others lay blame on gig economy titans like Uber, as well as on Metrolinx for a perceived failure to respond to these changing ridership trends.

Several people have commented on X (formerly Twitter) about train crowding after photos of a GO train were shared on Sunday night showing doorways blocked with food delivery bikes.

I'm speechless at the state of the Kitchener line. This train has 6 coaches with 12 doors and 10 of those doors were blocked by bikes. This is a serious @GOtransit safety hazard. Imagine if an evacuation was needed? The 2 bike per coach rule must be enforced asap. pic.twitter.com/BHfkzekzUt

— Justin 🚄🎵🔋🌈 (@not_taylorx) January 29, 2024

The post has been met with dozens of comments on the state of the regional transit network — including a response from GO — as well as takes on the gig economy that relies largely on couriers commuting from outlying suburbs to meet the demands of hungry Toronto stomachs.

It's possible that both things can be true.

1) this is unacceptable blocking of doors

2) GO should rush to either add one or multiple bike cars or simply emove the seats from a lower level car to at least provide space, pending racks.

Wild that people can't see both.

— S Riehl (@SpencerRiehl) January 29, 2024

GO Transit has responded to concerns on X, replying that the transit operator is "well aware of the situation," and stating that GO has "recently added more bike coaches to the Kitchener line on January 7th."

According to GO's website, "A maximum of two bikes can be stored in each of the Designated Bicycle Zones onboard" standard coaches, while these designated bike coaches are equipped with racks and space for at least 54 bikes.

There are bike cars in rotation but there's likely not enough for every train. Until then though, the safety rules should be in place. Why should we wait until something terrible happens?

— Justin 🚄🎵🔋🌈 (@not_taylorx) January 29, 2024

Several commenters suggested that the GO network would benefit further from European-style coaches designed to accommodate added bikes, though the original poster insists that even this would fail to meet the immense strain being placed on Metrolinx by food delivery services like Uber Eats and Doordash.

Here’s the issue though. Even if we had those style coaches here, the surge in demand for food delivery bikes would still overwhelm coaches like those.

— Justin 🚄🎵🔋🌈 (@not_taylorx) January 29, 2024

One user called out Uber, saying, "I wished there was a way to make Uber pay for the costs to operate these additional bike cars on GO Transit to accommodate their food couriers. Uber's gig economy model has imposed a ridiculous amount of costs on cities related to infrastructure."

Others suggest that Uber and other delivery services should foot the bill for in-city bike storage rather than placing the burden on public transit services.

One asked "Why don't we enforce the delivery companies to have a place for their employees to store their work tools?," adding, "I do agree the public transportation system has not kept up with the population growth but, to blame it on people that need their bike to work is not the way to go."