Good Caltrain Cop / Bad Caltrain Cop?

I was perplexed when I read Caltrain board member, Jim Hartnett's response, in a Daily Post article about Caltrain budget problems, to the supposed problem of high ridership demand from bicycle commuters:

Caltrain board member Jim Hartnett said yesterday that the agency should consider banning bikes after a bicycle advocate called on the agency to continue making more room for riders.

"I am concerned that we are never going to meet (the demand)," said Hartnett, a Redwood City council member. "We have to consider whether or not we should continue to provide that service."

You have scads of loyal customers who want to make daily use of a product you're providing, so instead of ramping up and accommodating them, you threaten to stop providing the product? Good thing there are more sensible views among the board members:

Later in the meeting, Executive Director Michael Scanlon said that the board should consider charging a fee for bikes to board Caltrain.

Well, at least sensible to a heartless capitalist like me. Scanlon will no doubt get a lot of flak for suggesting the fee -- which made me think -- maybe Hartnett was playing the part of bad cop, setting up an unthinkable scenario to make the fee idea look a little better. It would fit right in with another drastic scenario floated at the meeting: to not just reduce, but eliminate, weekend Caltrain service.

P.S. If you're not familiar with the Daily Post, it's a free newspaper that started showing up in local coffee shops about a year ago. It looks eerily similar to the Palo Alto Daily News, and it turns out it looks similar because it was started by the same folks after they had sold the Daily News. Normally, I'd link to the Daily Post story online, but, against all expectations, Silicon Valley's newest newspaper prints its stories on paper only. The publishers say they aren't going to put their stories online unless they can make money off of it. I begrudgingly respect that.