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Besides Europe, I remember seeing several sidewalks in Japan that allowed it. And many (most?) streets in Japan are fully mixed across modes, and have no sidewa
by ceras 5y ago
Besides Europe, I remember seeing several sidewalks in Japan that allowed it. And many (most?) streets in Japan are fully mixed across modes, and have no sidewalk, so you'll see bikers+pedestrians(+cars) combined there too.
There's something very nice about these types of mixed streets, but they're pretty much unheard in the US. They work very well on small residential streets, where cars would otherwise get 80% of the street width reserved to their use, even where car traffic is low.
Also, US sidewalks tend to be extremely narrow, which makes it worse to share modes.
- ghaff 5y agoIn Japan, you definitely see bikes going fairly quickly on sidewalks where there is a fair bit of pedestrian traffic. I'm especially careful in Japan to not make any possibly unpredictable side to side moves when walking because that's a good way to get clipped. I've even seen bikes trying to make their way through a pedestrian crush that's basically the people density of Times Square in NYC.
- ryan_lane 5y agoIt's technically illegal to ride your bike on the sidewalk in at least Tokyo. The lack of protected bike lanes, however, means that very few people obey that law. There's a lot of mixed-use streets here without sidewalks, and if cars weren't allowed on them, they'd be great. I'm always worried about being hit by a car on them.
- greggman3 5y agoTons of sidewalks in Tokyo are marked for mixed use. You'll see these round blue signs showing both a bicycle and pedestrian https://i.imgur.com/OzShuC8.jpg https://i.imgur.com/OzShuC8.jpg I wouldn't generally call Tokyo a bike friendly city but they do have bike parking lots and more and more bike lanes are being added.