Bicycle Austin forum

MichaelBluejay

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From: Austin, TX

Registered: 2008-05-26

Posts: 1,455

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No on-street parking in Japan

One of the things that bothers my wife after moving to America from Japan is all the cars here clogging the streets...the *sides* of the streets.  Because in Japan there is barely any on-street parking.  And in fact, before you can even purchase a car, you have to show that you have a place to park it.  If your apartment complex doesn't provide parking to you, then you have to lease a private parking space and show that to the government before you can buy a car.

I'd love to have that kind of system here.  First off, cars along the streets everywhere are an eyesore.  Second, they increase the danger to cyclists, especially the risk of getting doored.  Even John Forester notes that there's a large reduction in bike accidents when there's an absence of parked cars.  Finally, the streets are supposed to be a public resource for *transportation*, which is kind of at odds with having us subsidize storage space for private property.

I think about all this when I think about how some people screamed bloody murder when we tried to eliminate parking from just one side of the street on Shoal Creek Blvd., so we could have car-free bike lanes.

In my own neighborhood, one of my neighbors erected a "No Parking - Tow Away Zone" sign in front of her house.  I saw her in the yard one day when I was walking past, and I asked if she didn't consider the street to be public property?  She snapped at me, "It's not public property, it's private property!"  People think they own public resources.

Here's more on Japan's proof-of-parking requirement.