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I lived in Tokyo for almost five years, and owned a car while I was there ... I don't think this is a question of the city being "designed around cars". There'
by NovemberWhiskey 5y ago
I lived in Tokyo for almost five years, and owned a car while I was there ... I don't think this is a question of the city being "designed around cars".
There's a lot more "design for cars" in Tokyo than there is in, say, New York City - look at the Shuto expressway with its multiple rings of highways that run around the city and the radial routes that join them together; its elevated sections and tunnels through the most densely populated parts of the city...
There are also many areas in the urban core with multilane roads, but these always seem to be complemented with pedestrian over/under-passes.
Driving in Tokyo is very much more pleasant than driving in the NYC metro area. There is no street parking (by law), but there is often masses of underground parking to compensate: go to Akihabara, for example, and you'll find a five-story deep parking garage with >500 spaces under the Yodobashi Camera store.
One thing that Tokyo does have is a regulatory regime that means that cars are unavailable to the less well-off. That awesome Shuto expressway is a toll road. You have to provide documentation of owning a parking space in order to be able to register a vehicle. The biennial safety inspection (shaken) and taxes are very expensive by comparison with U.S. standards. Gas costs the best part of $6 per gallon.
- throwaway6734 5y ago>You have to provide documentation of owning a parking space in order to be able to register a vehicle. This is amazing! Free parking is a scourge in urban areas
- stjohnswarts 5y agoI can't agree, just because it works for tokyo and fits the culture doesn't mean it fits the culture everywhere.
- throwaway6734 5y agoTree parking is an unneeded subsidy. The state/city should either sell or rent spots
- throwaway6734 5y agoEdit: lol Free* parking
- noahtallen 5y agoI think it’s still related! Here’s a good video on the subject: https://youtu.be/d8RRE2rDw4k https://youtu.be/d8RRE2rDw4k Amsterdam is similarly regarded as excellent for biking and walking, but it’s also great for driving. This is hugely different from America, where basically every transit mode sucks (in dense areas) because dense areas are designed for cars at the local level. The solution that Amsterdam (and seemingly Tokyo) have used is to separate the two. You have roads which are excellent for high-speed cars, and local streets which are excellent for people to walk and bike. But you shouldn’t mix the two with local streets designed for high speed driving. (These are sometimes called “stroads”, and are one of the most common road designs used in North America for local access to shops.) The reality is that if you follow the advice of walking/biking infrastructure advocates, you also get a city which is nicer and safer for driving, because cars are much more separated from the most dangerous and stressful elements of city driving!