noglider 

https://vimeo.com/157120644

14% of trips in Tokyo are on bike. That's tremendous. They do this with almost bicycle infrastructure.

Gresp15C

Where are the cars?

Most of the scenes were of cyclists riding in places were cars were completely absent, and with relatively light pedestrian traffic.

With that said, I would certainly enjoy getting around by bike in Tokyo, and maybe there are some things for us to learn from them.

Edit: I don't want to make excuses for the situation here in the US, like: "Well, they have it easy because it's this way or that way." It was a great video and a reminder that there's more than one way to make a city bike friendly. Thanks for posting it.

Stadjer

I'm in favour of cycling infrastructure anywhere, but the idea that mass cycling starts with the infrastructure just isn't right. I don't believe it ever did anywhere, first there are the cyclists claiming the road, and the infrastructure follows.

berner

Great and super interesting video Tom. I think the young woman was right. If people were kinder to each other, cycling would be a better experience. This is the main reason I like living where I do. It is not Tokyo but cycling is common enough so that motorists are more aware of bikes and willing to make allowances.

noglider 

@berner, I've noticed a big increase in kindness on the streets of NYC, which is pretty surprising considering we're generally loud mouthed and impatient. But we've reached a certain kind of critical mass with bikes on the streets, and it's clear enough to motorists that we are here to stay. It's clear enough they have to watch for us and take precautions. Most streets in Manhattan are one-way. The bike lane is on the left, to avoid conflicts with buses. Some intersections have separate signals for bike lanes and the rest of traffic, and some don't. When someone wants to cross the bike lane and turn left in front of me, if there is enough space and time, I'll move to the right, behind them. I pass them on the right so they can make their left turns. They tend to wait for me to pass them on the left, because that's what most cyclists do. So it shows consideration and a trained response. I used to see taxi drivers as the rudest drivers, since they are out for themselves, everyone else be damned. But now they are better to me than regular drivers, since they are out there all the time and deal with us cyclists a lot.

@Gresp15C, small streets are really annoying to drive a car on, and with the high cost of driving in Tokyo, it doesn't make sense to drive on those streets. Small streets were made for pedestrians and carts, and now they're for pedestrians and cyclists.

@Stadjer, interesting that you say that, because a lot of the Dutch narrative claims that cycling was revived because of advocacy for bike infrastructure in the early 1970s. Your point of view is more like mine, and the NYC experience might prove it. It's hard to be sure of cause and effect.

BobbyG

I don't know if building more bike-centric infrastructure would help or hurt the cycling experience in Tokyo, but everybody interviewed seems like very nice people to share a city with.

Gresp15C

I have a theory that people are generally nicer to one another when we get outdoors more and make more direct contact with others. The rising prevalence of cycling in my locale seems to be coupled with improved behavior of car drivers, and of cyclists ourselves. There also seems to be more people walking.

Sounds like an urban design idea worth considering. My family was in some alpine towns in Switzerland last year, and it was kind of similar... a lot of streets that were just too narrow for regular car traffic. Now, it would have taken some legs to get around there on a bike, but it was a peaceful setup. There were occasional cars winding their way into passages, to deliver goods or whatever. Trucks would unload in the town square, and they'd use small electric carts to take things up to the shops.

noglider 

Wherever streets are small, things work this way, and it's surprisingly pleasant. You'd think you need big avenues to move volumes of traffic, but if you have a hierarchy of roads and vehicles, it works just as well, and then on small streets, you have people interacting with each other, and they tend to be kinder interactions.

Stadjer

That narrative isn't wrong. Stopping the idea that city centers had to be flattened to accomodate cars was of huge importance, and there was a second less spectacular turning point 2 decades later when everybody got on board and behind cycling, from left to right, even the vast majority of drivers.

But what's cycling infrastructure? A reasonably smooth road or street and I can cycle on it, so you could consider that cycling infrastructure. From a city planning perspective it all started in the City where I live now, with limiting the city centre to destination traffic for cars, and forbidding drivers to use it as part of their route to somewhere else. That limited the number of cars just because drivers would avoid the labyrinth, and the cyclists found themselves to be the dominant majority on the streets there. But there were already children claiming the streets, cyclists ready to claim any space they could get, and the alt left was squatting to claim old buildings for living space and prevent demolition to make space for car friendly developments.

Infrastructure made it such a success, but it shouldn't be misrepresented as government starting it top down by painting cycle lanes and installing rain sensitive traffic lights. Cycling infrastructure wasn't offered, it was demanded. That's why it doesn't really surprise me that it's New York where it's moving in the right direction, you need a bit of a 'what you gonna do? Run me over?'-attitude. From a position of strength you can negotiate and go easy on the drivers. The meek won't inherit a cycling city.

noglider 

Thank you, as always, @Stadjer. That "famous" video about Groningen has inspired so many ideas for me. Closing off streets is counter-intuitive to so many, especially here in the US (and probably Canada, too). Where there is a lot of traffic, it seems that the right thing is to maximize throughput with things like adding lanes, lengthening the light cycle of the heavily-trafficked street. But now we are learning that reducing motor traffic and increasing pedestrian traffic, merchants are elated with their increased business. Besides, the space becomes so much more pleasant.

Manhattan is a mess. Traffic here has been horrendous for generations. And it's worse in recent years, by a lot. My vision is everyone else's nightmare. Build a super highway around the perimeter and make it expensive or illegal to drive on local streets. Ramps from the highway should be few and not accessible from every damned cross street. Have lots of parking right near the ramps. Offer plentiful buses and other ways of getting from those garages to the center of the island.

I wish I had access to a traffic and design simulator to make my points.

Stadjer

That's like punching and extra hole in your belt because you are getting too fat. It's not really a solution and the relief is only temporary until you run out of belt.

Come to think of it, the Netherlands as really a sidewalk cafe culture these days. But I don't remember having a lot of those when I was a kid. The Dutch worship the sun for not showing up most of the year, that's a cultural thing, but I can't imagine that would be expressed through fanatic sidewalk cafe visits if it was noisy and smelly there. That's probably really new culture and economy that has emerged through car free or car low city centres.

You can design a suspension bridge that will stand once finished, but if it collapses during construction because it can't support it's weight only half finished, there's no point. The end product is probably not the issue here, you've got to design the process, and behaviour of cyclists and pedestrians is part of that, and that's dynamic and difficult to control.

What Barcelona is doing right now, or at least was before the independency struggles, is very interesting but has a lot to do with how the blocks were designed in the late 19th century. Ghent in Belgium has recently done something simular to the 'traffic circulation plan' that started things off in Groningen, but that was already one the more cycling friendly cities of Belgium, still getting drivers angry at first was part of the deal.

Maybe the regular grid of NY offers it's own possibilities, like every other street prioritizes bicycles and pedestrians where cars only have 'guest use' with one way traffic for cars, vehicular cycling and adapted speeds, and the others prioritize car traffic and cyclists only have a cycling lane. That would split cars and cyclists except for the ones that have their destination in a specific street. The character of the car low streets will change for the better, and the number of cycling streets can increase.

noglider 

Very interesting thoughts, @Stadjer. Thanks.

MikeyMK

Cycling freedom. We have that here in Milton Keynes, we can ride anywhere.

We don't represent 14% of journeys, though. The road system is subsequently short of cyclists, as we prefer the pavements, so people love being able to use their cars properly here - it's great for motorists so the car is king.

JonnyHK 

Tokyo is pretty much totally flat. That helps.

koolerb

Great video

detroitjim

Japan is a different world. Low crime and one of the safest countries on earth.

Tomodachi

Yeah, thousands of bikes around. Parking can be a little crazy if you are a foreigner also. The council can take your bike if parked in the wrong place or short term.

noglider 

@Tomodachi, is that your video?

kunsunoke 

Tom, Tokyo denizens tend to ride Mamacharis on sidewalks, at walking speed. Riding the roads over there is frustrating, due to the short distances between traffic signals and to the slow speeds and congestion. Bike paths are more of a suggestion than a reality. They're narrow, multi-use and seriously unsafe. I know this because I've been to Japan and ridden over there.

Streets to the east of the Heisei emperor's palace are often shut down for cycling traffic, though, and you'll occasionally see people riding pretty fast there. Cycling as we know it here tends to occur mainly in the countryside (Chiba and to the west of Yokohama).

Tomodachi

Yes, I made it a few weeks ago. My bike was taken a few days later in Hiroshima.

Tomodachi

Cycling in Tokyo was great compared to Sydney, one huge difference was the thousands of people everywhere as well as other riders. But absolutely loved it.
Some night riding in Kabukicho Shinjuku area.

Maelochs

You seem very skilled at dodging people. I would hate to cycle with so many pedestrians around.

I would definitely opt for the Ben-Hur scythed hubs.

mr_bill

Just back from Taipei (the Amsterdam for Vespa lovers).


But the transformation of bicycling in Taipei *is* being led by "the meek."

It's hard to separate the two big changes, since they both happened at about the same time.


YouBike (thank you Giant) shared bike system lets people ride without worrying about their bike. It's about half the cost of the MRT and gets you there in about the same amount of time. It's one of the most used bike share systems in the world.

And the widening of the pavements (sidewalks) into shared bike/pedestrian paths on the large stroads has CONNECTED the city for "the meek."


Taipei always had the lovely small streets (where people walk, ride, and drive in the street - slowly), and the larger vibrant city two-lane roads, were it's very comfortable for all to ride. And all ages have always ridden there.


But so many stroads (usually multilane boulevards) cutting every which way through the city isolated these bicycling paradises. Even though most of these stroads have low effective speeds (scooters are usually the fastest vehicles) these were definitely NOT comfortable for many people to ride a bicycle on. So "the meek" illegally rode on the pavements - slowly.


So, two small changes made it a city for "the meek." YouBike, and legal pavement riding.

And the strong followed.

-mr. bill

Daniel4

Did you hear the woman at 6:17 say she got rid of her car because she didn't want to cause accidents?

Most people in North America when trying to convince you not to cycle don't say they don't want to cause accidents. They usually say it's safer being in an accident - sort of like implying they don't mind causing and being in them.

To the people who say Tokyo (and Amsterdam and etc...) is flat, well I don't know of any city intentionally built on a side of any hill or mountain. When cities grow, they engulf local hills.

To the people who say you don't need infrastructure to cycle, that's true. But you need infrastructure if you want to attract more cyclists when you have a traffic congestion problem.

Stadjer

Good to hear, but they rode illegally on the sidewalk, so it might not be about confronting cars, but they did break the law. Cyclists started something and city planners followed, that sounds quite familiar to me, living in a cycling city.

Agree. Amsterdam is pretty rainy, very windy, often cold and full of steep bridges. It's sinking so a lot of streets are brick or cobblestone. Not beeing on the side of mountain just like most cities in the world is about the only thing it has going for mass cycling. For countryside cycling they have a point, but often it seems more like a big difference needs one simple explanation.