BART directors backed away Thursday night from a recommendation to allow bikes on all trains, opting first for a five-month test period, starting in July.

After a nearly two-hour hearing, the BART board voted 6-3 to conduct the test instead of the other option it was considering, which was to end its policy of banning bikes on trains during peak commute hours.

The directors voted to allow bikes on all trains - in all but the first three cars - from July 1 through Dec. 1 with careful monitoring and a review in October.

"Five days in 2012 and five days in 2013 is not enough," Director Gail Murray of Walnut Creek said of two previous BART tests.

Directors Tom Radulovich, James Fang and Robert Raburn voted against the motion, saying they favored lifting bike bans permanently.

Supporters of ending the bicycle blackout crowded into the BART boardroom and an overflow room.

Twenty-nine people, many of them bicyclists, lined up to speak to the BART directors. All but a couple of them urged BART to get rid of the rush-hour prohibition, which many said kept them from getting around, forced them to plan their schedules around bike blackout periods or even left them stranded.

"At evening rush hour, it's a real hassle," said William Jones, who works in San Francisco, lives in Oakland and has been stuck at the Embarcadero Station. "You need to lift this ban."

But not everyone agreed. Stewart Gooderman, a regular BART rider who said he spoke for "tens of thousands of people who don't ride bicycles," argued against allowing bikes on trains during commute hours, saying that too many bicyclists are rude or don't follow the rules.

"I have been personally threatened, accosted by a bicyclist on an escalator," he said. "Bicyclists to this point have not showed they can follow the rules we have now. Why give them additional privileges?"

Previous experiments

BART staff members recommended lifting the bike blackout periods after a pair of experiments, in August and in March, failed to create have an adverse impact. On five Fridays in August, bikes were allowed unrestricted access to BART. The March experiment allowed bikes on all trains for a week.

Surveys conducted after the tests found little opposition from regular BART riders and surprisingly strong support for ending the blackout period, especially after the March test. BART's operations department, security staff and station agents also reported few troubles.

A random-sample survey of 1,720 BART riders found 76 percent in favor of allowing bikes on all trains, except for the first three cars, at all times, and 23 percent opposed. That's a big increase over the 37 percent who supported removing restrictions in a survey after the August test.

Evolving policy

Allowing bikes aboard BART trains has been an evolving and controversial issue since the system began operating in 1972, when they were prohibited. In 1974, bikes were allowed for the first time, but only with a permit and in the last car of each train during non-commute hours. In 1988, bikes were allowed in reverse commute directions during peak hours. The permit requirement was removed in 1997 and the bike blackout hours were narrowed in 1998.

But the question of whether to allow bikes on trains has grown more contentious as the number of bicycle commuters has climbed in the Bay Area and BART ridership has surged to nearly 400,000 each weekday, causing overcrowding on many commute-hour trains. BART currently allows bikes on trains except for a couple of hours in the most-congested times of the day in the most-congested directions, and in the first car.

While bicyclists have clamored for BART to be more accommodating, some passengers have objected to, or at least grumbled about, allowing bikes on commute-hour trains. Critics have said the trains are too crowded, the trains are not outfitted for bikes and bicyclists are not always respectful of other passengers.

But those concerns appeared to ease after the March test. According to the scientifically conducted survey, just 13 percent of passengers said they experienced problems. The most common problems cited were bikes blocking doorways, aisles or seats, bikes entering crowded trains, bikes on escalators, rude behavior and delays.

Divided on room

Allowing bikes had little or no effect on their trip, said 75 percent of the survey respondents, while 8 percent said it made the trip better and 17 percent said it made things worse. Those surveyed were more divided when asked if there was enough room for both bikes and passengers, with 39 percent saying there was sufficient room, 42 percent saying the trains were crowded but OK, and 19 percent reporting that they were too crowded.

About 25 percent of those surveyed said they would be more likely to ride BART if they could take their bikes along, while 11 percent said they were less likely to ride if they had to share the trains with bikes. Six percent of those surveyed brought their bikes on BART during the experimental period, and 3 percent said they avoided BART because of the test.

In addition to experimenting with easing the rules, officials are trying to accommodate more bicyclists by modifying all BART cars, expanding secure bike parking, participating in the Bay Area's planned bike-sharing program, creating bike boarding areas in crowded stations like 12th Street and 19th Street in downtown Oakland, and expanding bike etiquette education campaigns.

Michael Cabanatuan is a San Francisco Chronicle staff writer. E-mail: mcabanatuan@sfchronicle.com Twitter: @ctuan