Kumamoto Bicycle Blues
Several years ago the Kumamoto council came up with a daft idea to force everyone on a bicycle to park them ONLY in designated parking areas. This was a silly idea, inconvenient, bad for business and a waste of money.
'Oh, yeah, why?'
- I’m glad you asked!
The basic reason it was done was that in the past people parked their bicycles in the pavements/walking areas (like the photo at the top of the page). This was seen as obstructive and ugly by some people. The top quality English (ooh, sarcasm) explanation was, for example, this:
“Not only a large quantity of and chaotic leaving to street disturbs traffic of walker (that particularly impaired person and old one, stroller are used), but also it spoils scenery of town while it is transportation that bicycle is simple, and is eco-friendly. Please use bicycle parking lot on outing.”
So they built around 12 fenced off bicycle parking areas in the city centre area. Places where you need to go in via a gate, take a ticket, then later pay to take your bike back out (if you stay for more than 2 hours). Like this below, though most of them are outside:
Several years ago the Kumamoto council came up with a daft idea to force everyone on a bicycle to park them ONLY in designated parking areas. This was a silly idea, inconvenient, bad for business and a waste of money.
'Oh, yeah, why?'
- I’m glad you asked!
The basic reason it was done was that in the past people parked their bicycles in the pavements/walking areas (like the photo at the top of the page). This was seen as obstructive and ugly by some people. The top quality English (ooh, sarcasm) explanation was, for example, this:
“Not only a large quantity of and chaotic leaving to street disturbs traffic of walker (that particularly impaired person and old one, stroller are used), but also it spoils scenery of town while it is transportation that bicycle is simple, and is eco-friendly. Please use bicycle parking lot on outing.”
So they built around 12 fenced off bicycle parking areas in the city centre area. Places where you need to go in via a gate, take a ticket, then later pay to take your bike back out (if you stay for more than 2 hours). Like this below, though most of them are outside:
That might seem reasonable to you, but you'd be wrong, dear comrade. Here's why:
1. One key point that was made was that bicycles are ugly and spoil the scenery.
Are bicycles ugly? Do they spoil the scenery? Are they any more ugly than cars? Aren’t they a rather clever creation of human intelligence, well designed, symmetrical and even rather beautiful? If bicycles are ugly then so are cars, surely. The basic foundation of the idea is faulty, thought up by people who drive big cars to their high level government jobs and look down on bicycles as things that poor people and students use. They note, rather casually, that bicycles are ecologically friendly - and then proceed to design things to make using bicycles harder, less convenient and more expensive. Clever, ne!
While we are on the topic of things spoiling the scenery, looking ugly - how about huge adverts on buildings and streets for Coca cola, Sony, this stupid product, that silly pachinko, etc? I consider them as ugly, and spoiling the scenery. Can we please treat them the same way as bicycles and create a special park for adverts? We could go there and watch them, when we feel like it, like going to an ‘Advert Zoo’. Could be a fun day out for the kids. Banning all adverts from cities would leave the scenery far more clean and beautiful, right? But, no, that kind of idea would seem a mad, utopian point by the people who run such local government. But bicycles are fair game - yes let get rid of those bicycles that keep people fit, don't destroy the environment, take up much less space than cars and, er...
Next point - if the bikes were ugly what did they put in the empty street areas that were previously used by bikes? Did they put nice benches there, plant trees, put up statues made by local artists? Did they make the area more beautiful?
No, nothing, not a thing....
99% of those areas which were previously useful for people to leave their bikes are now just empty, barren, useless. Like the image below. Are such spaces as on the left side, which used to be full of bicycles, being used in a better way now? Are they less ugly than before? Was it worth the cost to achieve these empty, ugly spaces in which most of the time people don't even walk?
1. One key point that was made was that bicycles are ugly and spoil the scenery.
Are bicycles ugly? Do they spoil the scenery? Are they any more ugly than cars? Aren’t they a rather clever creation of human intelligence, well designed, symmetrical and even rather beautiful? If bicycles are ugly then so are cars, surely. The basic foundation of the idea is faulty, thought up by people who drive big cars to their high level government jobs and look down on bicycles as things that poor people and students use. They note, rather casually, that bicycles are ecologically friendly - and then proceed to design things to make using bicycles harder, less convenient and more expensive. Clever, ne!
While we are on the topic of things spoiling the scenery, looking ugly - how about huge adverts on buildings and streets for Coca cola, Sony, this stupid product, that silly pachinko, etc? I consider them as ugly, and spoiling the scenery. Can we please treat them the same way as bicycles and create a special park for adverts? We could go there and watch them, when we feel like it, like going to an ‘Advert Zoo’. Could be a fun day out for the kids. Banning all adverts from cities would leave the scenery far more clean and beautiful, right? But, no, that kind of idea would seem a mad, utopian point by the people who run such local government. But bicycles are fair game - yes let get rid of those bicycles that keep people fit, don't destroy the environment, take up much less space than cars and, er...
Next point - if the bikes were ugly what did they put in the empty street areas that were previously used by bikes? Did they put nice benches there, plant trees, put up statues made by local artists? Did they make the area more beautiful?
No, nothing, not a thing....
99% of those areas which were previously useful for people to leave their bikes are now just empty, barren, useless. Like the image below. Are such spaces as on the left side, which used to be full of bicycles, being used in a better way now? Are they less ugly than before? Was it worth the cost to achieve these empty, ugly spaces in which most of the time people don't even walk?
2. Those parks cost Kumamoto taxpayers money to create and maintain.
Since each of the dozen or more bicycles parking areas had to be cleared, floor laid, gates bought, fences bought, land itself bought, staff employed, etc the total bill for them must have been quite a bit. The local people have to pay for that via taxes. Was it a good use of the money? No, considering that there was a better solution to the situation at almost no cost at all. More on that later.
3. It reduces revenue to local businesses.
Several times I've thought to myself: "I'd like to get X in the shops in the centre"...then stopped and remembered 'Tckk, but I'd have to go to one of those annoying bicycles parks 3 streets away from where I want to go, and then to the other shop even further off... and pay for the annoyance!... Oh, I'll not bother going." That is a small thing, a mundane piece of psychology. But it's exactly the kind of thing we think about on everyday things like shopping. Multiply that reflections by 10,000s of people thinking the same thing every year and it adds up to a considerable decrease in shopping done in the city centre.
The possible benefit of that, though, is that people may go shopping in places nearer to them, not the centre.
4. Inconvenience
If i am going to THAT cafe, THIS shop, shouldn’t I be able to put by bicycles THERE? I'm going in to spend money there, so why do i have to put my bicycle in a parking area 3 streets away? That means we have to walk to the shop from there, and then carry the heavy bags back 3 streets again, when I could be putting them right into my bike parked outside the shop I've just spent my money in.
So, Mr know it all, what is the solution?
There was a very simple and cheap solution: at present there are a bunch of old retired guys ( like the nice old guy below who I talked to recently in a friendly way). Their job is to go round and tell people not to park their bikes anywhere but the bike parks. I think they are volunteers or get some small amount of money for it.
Ok, so since these old lads are going around anyway, with nothing useful to do most of the time...why not allow people to park their bikes in the street, as before - and those guys simply go around and tidy up the bicycles that are sticking out, putting them into nice neat rows.
The end. Problem solved.
No tax money wasted on more than a dozen parking areas, no inconvenience, no reduced income for those shops, etc. And it gives those old guys a sense of having done something worthwhile that day. Right now they stand around all day, looking and no doubt feeling pretty useless... then a few times a day bother someone about leaving a bicycle outside the parking areas - normally next to the shop the person is about to go into. That means there job is 90% to do nothing and 10% to bother shoppers. In my suggested solution they would actually have something useful to do: they would walk around the centre tidying things up, preventing bicycles from blocking paths, helping things run smoothly and go home feeling they had helped their city.