Given the wide usage of bicycles in Japan, why doesn’t Japan create a bicycle-friendly environment like Netherlands or Denmark?

9 comments

1. I mean it’s pretty damn obvious why. Do you think people can just create extra roads out of thin air?

2. Because people love cars

3. Newton’s third law. For all the “collectivist society” propaganda on one side, the “every man for themselves” mentality of cyclists flying past you with one hand holding a baby and the other on their phone has to exist in equal measure

4. As is the case anywhere, policies are generally prioritized according to political or public will. It’s not generally a major issue that most politicians or citizen groups are focused on, and so without any significant force in either the public or private sector pushing politicians to make the environment more bicycle-friendly, other issues will naturally be prioritized.

   This is also a case-by-case thing when it comes to local politics, as some municipalities might be prioritizing this issue higher than others, if at all.

5. Toyota, Nissan, Honda, Mitsubishi, Eneos, Idemitsu

   and a whole bunch of construction companies bribery to political parties to build roads to nowhere

6. I think Japan has done exactly what it needs to for what it’s citizens want.

   Japanese pedestrians are very accommodating to cyclists and cyclists are generally very courteous to pedestrians.

   Without expanding roads or inconveniencing the majority of the population, their current system works pretty effectively.

   Compare that to country like Canada or the US, Japan is doing wonderfully for itself and its cyclists.

7. Haven’t they been fine with pedestrians walking and riders on the same path for a long time? Are there a lot of serious accidents happening? You either turn the car paths into bike paths, have bikes ride with cars (super dangerous), have pedestrian paths turn into bike paths or have pedestrians and bikes in the same path. The safest option is to turn car paths into bike paths but unless accidents are really common, pedestrians and bikes being in the same path isn’t a problem if bikes aren’t going above 15 mph and walkers and riders are paying attention.

8. There’s bike friendly areas if you go outside of the big cities like Tokyo and Osaka, but I’m assuming you’re talking about in the metropolitan areas. Within those, they’d rather just encourage people to use public transport instead because those literally cover everywhere already. You’d be pretty hard pressed to find a place where it takes more than a 10-15 minute walk tops from a train or subway station, and if such a place exists there’s always bus routes too. Creating bike lanes out of car lanes would just make the existing car traffic even more congested.

9. Have you been to Japan?

   Japan is mostly a walking society. In the cities, their public transportation is so good that things such as bikes and cars are often seen as the less convenient option. Also, thanks to Japanese traffic laws, bicycles and cars can basically co-exist almost seamlessly on the roads. If anything, bicycles often bully the cars around as cars are often treated as third-class citizens of the road. If there is ever a road that is deemed too dangerous for bikes (like freeways, bridges, etc), Japan is really good about creating separate bike paths for cyclists. Japan will even designate some paths “bikes only, no pedestrians”.