Articles about
bicycle parking in Japan have been a popular topic on cycling blogs worldwide. They usually describe Japans high tech underground bicycle parking garages where customers place their bike on a small rack, punch some buttons and their bicycle is automatically whisked underground and parked with thousands of others. Bicycles can be retrieved from the system in under 30 seconds. Convenient, safe, tidy, cheap and awesome.
But while the number of automated underground parking lots around Japan are on the increase, lets not forget that in reality bicycle parking in Japan is a lot more like the photo on the left which was taken at our local station just last weekend.
When the day arrives that bicycles are all safely stowed away underground, off the streets and out of the way of pedestrians, I will miss the random chaos that was once bicycle parking in Japan.
I won't miss the damage my bicycles have received in this chaos, but I will miss crazy scenes like the one in the photograph because surely this sculpture is more interesting than a stretch of empty pavement, is it not?
It's scenes like that that make me wonder, "who thought this was a good idea and why?"
ReplyDeleteTim, me too. But it is random scenes like this that make living in Tokyo so much fun.
ReplyDeleteI once vowed I'd return to my country of origin the day I stepped outside my apartment and didn't see something that made me think "Now, that's odd." That was almost two decades ago.
Byron I searched your blog and surprising there is no information on long-term bike parking in Tokyo other than that random picture which I cant understand. Can you do an entry on finding long-term bike parking and the cost? Thanks
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