Re:The popularity of e-bikes isn’t slowing down
by ryan_lane on Monday November 08, 2021 @10:12PM
(#29157288)
It'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.
Re:The popularity of e-bikes isn’t slowing down
by greggman3 on Tuesday November 09, 2021 @04:55AM
(#29159628)
Tons 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
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.
Re:The popularity of e-bikes isn’t slowing down
by ghaff on Monday November 08, 2021 @06:29PM
(#29155705)
In 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.
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.