Tokyo Govt. Bans Bicycle Parking Around Tokyo Station

[gmat]

De facto tax on bicycle riders and the Tokyo Govt. hasn't yet provided enough legal parking spaces to accommodate all of the present bicycles. Same thing happened at Shinjuku Station. Here the racks accommodate about a tenth of the previous number of parked bicycles and the closest racks are only available to those who pay a special fee and have the proper sticker. 

 

http://www.japantoday.com/category/national/view/govt-announces-ban-on-parking-bicycles-around-tokyo-station

 

Best wishes,

Grant

[Ochanomizu]

Meanwhile, the rest of the world is trying to encourage the use of bicycles................

[KenS]

They probably don't want piles of parked bicycles marring the appearance of the newly-redone station. It does seem a little bit odd that they wouldn't be more accommodating to bicyclists and make some out-of-the-way parking available. Japan has parking garages for bicycles for heaven's sake, it's not like it's a niche transportation mode.

[bikkuri bahn]

They probably don't want piles of parked bicycles marring the appearance of the newly-redone station. It does seem a little bit odd that they wouldn't be more accommodating to bicyclists and make some out-of-the-way parking available. Japan has parking garages for bicycles for heaven's sake, it's not like it's a niche transportation mode.

Being that the area is prime real estate, likely there aren't too many locations to build cycle parking garages.  A lot is going to be more attractive as a site for a 5 star hotel than as a mama chari dump.

[Martijn Meerts]

Being Dutch and travelling by train pretty much every day, I've seen my fair share of train stations crowded with bikes.. A lot of them are old ones hardly fit to still be on the road, but students use them to get from the train station to school. If they break down, they just leave them there. I've had times where I actually had to move bikes out of the way to be able to get into the station, so I can imagine why they want to keep them away from a newly redone station to be honest...

[Ochanomizu]

Hello Mr Martijn,

 

Doesn't Amsterdam Station have a very large bicycle parking station?  I hear it is multi level.  How many bicycle can it hold?

[Martijn Meerts]

Not sure, I've never been to Amsterdam by bike :)

 

I do know they have a bicycle parking garage near the station which is multi level and about as ugly is it can get. They definitely don't want something like that near Tokyo Station ;)

[Densha]

[Guest ___]

 Is this the automatic underground storage system? Bike Share in DC is proposing adding a bunch of these.

[Kabutoni]

 Is this the automatic underground storage system? Bike Share in DC is proposing adding a bunch of these.

 

Yep. I don't know how many we have here in the neighbourhood, but I think we have at least two. They're pretty awesome, but I never use them :P

[Martijn Meerts]

Would suck if the thing malfunctioned.... You put in your 8000 dollar carbon race bike, and you get back a 50 dollar Hello Kitty bike ;)

Edited July 25, 2013 by Martijn Meerts

[cteno4]

LOL! great mental picture! i can just see Martijn standing there in his biking trunks and helmet and mirrored glasses with the hello kitty bike just given him instead of his racing bike.

 

just think of the bummed line if it stopped working all together... ive often wondered that with the vertical car carousel garages.

 

jeff