As might be apparent from my previous post, I brought my Brompton along to Tokyo. The plan was to attend a specific event: a monthly meetup of local Brompton owners called “Brompton in Palace“, named after the fact that the group originally met up on the peripheral of the Imperial Palace. The organizer also has a website.
Unfortunately, the meeting was called off due to rain, and the announcement was made when I was already enroute with the bike. It turns out that having the bike gave me the opportunity to feel out what it is really like to travel around Tokyo by bike.
On the weekend, I planned out a ride along the Arakawa River, where there is open space on the west side with paved paths. I had visited the area before, but this time I was determined to check out a long artificial island on the east side that divided the Arakawa from the Naka River. It was hard to tell from Google street view exactly which bridges allowed pedestrian and cyclist access to the island, and to be safe I picked out a bridge near Yotsugi.
Here are the bollards blocking things like motorbikes from the river side area.
Riding north.
Approaching the Kinekawa bridge, and going across.
On the other side I see the same sort of trails as on the west side. There are parallel paths on top of the dyke, as well as lower by the river. The lower path is flanked by open space and a whole series of sports fields.
Here is one of the many youth baseball teams that I saw biking to practice early on a Sunday morning.
The other thing that I’ll note is that almost all the sports fields had a public restroom nearby. Although I didn’t go into any of them, and those that had open doors looked like they were pretty dirty, the fact that they were present was a strong contrast to what we have in Toronto. In fact, I noted a very high density of public bathrooms all across the city.
Here I am at the southern tip of the island at this location. Just a few fishermen about. I’m dressed all in wool, with a top from Pedaled and my aforementioned wool knickers from Rin Project.
Going back north, I see that in fact many of the bridges have access to Arakawa island, and I ended up going back across on the Komatsgawa bridge.
Here is a map of my ride that day,
Then it was Monday, and I was off to a downtown hotel with my backpack/carryon. Note the very narrow painted bike lane.
Many smart streets also had these useless sharrow markings, that are ignored by cars and truck parked curbside.
Most of the cycling that you see in Tokyo on major streets is on the sidewalk. In a few areas, there is signage to encourage a separation between pedestrians and cyclists, but these signs were often ignored.
I’ll also note that that bike routes suggested by Google more or less force you to bike on the sidewalk occasionally, as you are often directed the wrong way on a large arterial that is one way.
More of those useless sharrows as I approach the neighbourhood of the University of Tokyo.
This is the one spot where I actually saw some cones laid down for a modicum of protection since there was a bit of an uphill climb from Nezu.
There are often commenting challenges set up in cities to compare commute times by car, bike and transit. In a city like Toronto, biking often wins as downtown traffic can be hopeless, and transit routes can be frustratingly indirect. I figured that in Tokyo, with its extensive network of subways and trains that transit would win.
The conference that I was attending actually at a day at a different campus that was across central Tokyo from our hotel, and I was determined to bike there during the morning rush hour. The rest of the group was to take the subway. Google predicted similar times for transit and cycling: about 55 minutes for the 7.5 km trip.
Here I go. Here are some crossing guards.
During rush hour, the sidewalks are packed and so if you want to bike any distance you need to bike on the street. Here I am at an intersection where I am taking the lane because of a left turn curb lane.
However, I did start noticing that the few cyclists that I saw would bike between stopped cars and actually position themselves right by the curb at the corner. The assumption being that drivers are observant enough not to left hook them. By and large, I found drivers here to be very careful, and I had no issues with traffic. I will note a fair number of close passes when traffic was heavy, but you didn’t get the sense that drivers were out to kill you.
It also helped enormously to have the helmet mirror so that I could keep an eye out behind me, particularly when I was riding around a parked vehicle. Ideally, the mirror would have been mounted on the other side of the helmet.
Some of the shadows were augmented with blue arrows, which you can see did not effect the parking.
Lighter traffic now as I skirt the new Olympic Stadium.
If you stick to major streets, then you can use the same signs as the cars for wayfinding, which was convenient.
Bottom line: I made it in about 50 minutes which was very close to the Google estimate. I started off at 8 AM which was a little past the peak of rush hour. My colleagues on the subway arrived about 15 minutes later, and they commented on how crowded the trains were.
After the day’s events, I’m headed to the Shibuya scramble crossing for a group photo.
Said group photo by Jason Tam.
Jason was also kind enough to take this shot of my and my bike.
At this point, I took the subway the rest of the way back, and regulations stated that bikes have to be bagged on the trains. Thus my carrying handle with shoulder strap and a Dimpa bag.
Two final notes. On the sidewalk, there doesn’t seem to be fixed protocol for which side you take when another bike is approaching. Also, most bikes do not have bells, and it is regarded as a bit aggressive if you use one.
Finally, on small one way side streets, this sign says that bikes are allowed to go the wrong way.
All in all, cycling in Tokyo was more pleasant than I expected. The comparative lack of bike infrastructure was offset by the courtesy of the drivers,
The other thing is that I can now mentally connect some of the districts that I rode through like Shibuya, Harajuku, and Omotesando in a different way than just popping up from the subway.
Perhaps the next time I’ll make use of their bikeshare system.
Biking in a Big City 