Millions of bicycles, nowhere to park

Press, 4 October 1982, Page 24

Millions of bicycles, nowhere to park

By

WAHEI SAKURAI,

of Reuters, in Tokyo

Japan, where urban congestion is as bad as anywhere in the world, is facing a new traffic problem — too many bicycles.

According to. Government estimates there are nearly 60 million bicycles in the country — about one for every two Japanese. About two milliondaily are left round railway sTations.

Parked on the roads, pavements and any other available space close to stations, the bicycles are creating a public nuisance.

The problem, said; one official from the Prime Minister's Office, is that while both central and local governments have paid considerable attention to controlling the hazards from the nearly 25 million cars on Japanese roads, any illeffects from the bicycles have been neglected.

"We must review the role of the bicycle as an inexpensive and convenient method of transport,” he said. The cause of the belated

concern was underlined by a recent Government survey which showed that there was not enough space for commuters to park their bicycles outside railway stations.

Japan has a total of 6092 public and private parking lots with enough capacity for 1.33 million bicycles; the remainder must be left wherever some space can be found.

After the 1973 oil crisis, bicycles became officially in vogue as the Government adopted a wide energy conservation programme.’ The Government last year adopted a “ride-a-bicycle" campaign, designating May a cycling month. However, more recently, local authorities have grown increasingly annoyed by the flood of bicycles, and in some cases have called on their ‘constituents to get up 15 minutes earlier and walk to the station.

But, offering no particular incentive, - this campaign failed. One of the disincentives to

use public transport to get to the station, according to another Government survey, was that buses do not run on schedule — possibly because of traffic jams from so many cars on the roads — and because too few run on a particular service.

Two years ago Japan's national Parliament passed a bill to standardise bicycle parking arrangements. It required banks, supermarkets, and department stores to provide parking facilities, although its implementation was left to the discretion of local governments. This time an incentive was offered in the form of subsidies and low-interest loans to construct parking facilities.

The result has been that some of Tokyo’s suburbs have multi-storey parking lots for bicvcles.

To supplement this law, some local authorities took the more drastic measure of towing away unattended bicycles not in the designated parking zones. In Ichikawa, just outside Tokyo, nearly 40 parking atten-

dants are employed every day to spot the offending bicvcles.

But another suburb. Kunitachi. once the country’s most bicycle-congested district, appears to have found the answer

— it bans bicycle parking around its station. Under the town's ordinance, anyone who wants to ride to the station must register his bicycle for 2000 yen (about $9) a year for a designated parking spot, while anyone living within a radius of 500 metres from the station cannot register.

Despite the cost to Kunitachi — about 30 million yen ($120,000) a year — some 20 local governments have followed suit.

Although the congestion problems remain a headache for the authorities, they are pursuing their campaign to promote bicycles, and . encouraging the building of special bicycle paths.

At present, with the roads apparently too dangerous, most cyclists compete with pedestrians for space on Japan's narrow footpaths.