On the other hand, I don't know if telling kids and families to just take the lane is the right approach.
The "Well there's your problem" podcast goes over a lot of his ideas in great detail [0]. The crux of it is what the above study says: if you want to encourage cycling you have to build dedicated infrastructure (and maintain that infrastructure in all weather and conditions) in order for people to view it as something reliable.
The key is to avoid what the parent poster specified by just increasing supply: to assuage fears that there are "only a handful of bike lanes and paths (and thus cyclists fear they are confined)" is to just build more. It's vastly cheaper than our current car-focused infrastructure. Cities exist today that seem to figure this out without turning into Amsterdam, so surely the rest of us can figure it out as well.
Cycling specific infrastructure can do a lot, but it can never be a solution for all destinations because of limitations enforced by pre-existing infrastructure.
But more pragmatically, vehicular cycling is often the best choice because of visibility and predictability, and also as regards driver awareness and expectation: it at least seems safer if drivers are accustomed to sharing the road than if they never have to.
I'm not convinced that the answer is just more infrastructure. IME, most bike paths are just bad. They're some combination of poorly designed, poorly made, or poorly maintained. There's one on the way to my office that has marked loading bays for trucks such that I have to keep getting off onto the car traffic because there's no way I'm passing between a vehicle and the sidewalk. Why would you build something like that there? And of course if you decide that it's just too risky to use the bike path people scream at you because they think they're entitled to that lane that you didn't even ask for.
I can't read videos, but how does he sustain this claim given that Tokyo exists and has a large cycling modal share with virtually no bike lanes?
Vehicular cycling is absolutely right IME. If you want to build "dedicated infrastructure", junction priority changes and advance stop lines should be a lot higher on the list than cycle lanes on plain road (which is not where the killing of cyclists by drivers is happening).
The place would be a lot better for cycling if they installed more dedicated infrastructure, but it works as-is for many reasons: there aren't that many cars in most places, because parking is rare and expensive, vehicle speeds are rather low, motorized vehicles have most of the liability for accidents with pedestrians or cars (no matter what: if a kid runs out in front of you and you kill him, it's your fault), theft is very rare, and people are extremely non-confrontational so even though many pedestrians hate sharing the sidewalks with cyclists, they just put up with it. Back in the US, I had people screaming at me and trying to start physical fights with me when I rode on sidewalks and there was no one else on the sidewalk except them. Here, people just step aside. Another thing here: cyclists are legally required to carry liability insurance, in case they hit a pedestrian.
Anyway, you're not going to replicate Tokyo's success with cycling by simply copying one feature. The whole culture here makes it workable despite the lack of great cycling infrastructure, as well as many other things that are basically impossible elsewhere.
Finally, while the infrastructure could be better in many places, things are constantly improving; newer developments (housing, malls, Olympic sports venues, etc.) have bicycle parking as a standard feature, for instance.
That's most of the cycling that happens, from what I've seen. (I also live here)
> The big roads do have painted bike lanes
Very ward dependent; some places do, many don't, and even in the places that do they're a recent thing.
> Another thing here: cyclists are legally required to carry liability insurance, in case they hit a pedestrian.
That's a very recent change - I think it was only last year or the year before.
> Anyway, you're not going to replicate Tokyo's success with cycling by simply copying one feature.
I suspect you might if that feature was "make street parking illegal", because everything else flows from that - narrow streets become possible, sharing those streets becomes necessary. But my point is mainly that this idea that segregated cycle lanes are the sine qua non is very wrong; Tokyo definitely proves that much.
Basically, cyclists have a choice: take roads and risk getting hit by cars, or take sidewalks and risk running over pedestrians. The risk to the cyclist is FAR lower with the latter, so that's the rational choice to make, and that's what they've done. Getting hit by a car is easily a death sentence; hitting a pedestrian can cause serious injuries, but that's rare, and usually the risk is to the pedestrian.
If you really want safety for everyone, you need to separate all 3 modes of traffic. It works ok here much of the time just because people are tolerant and non-confrontational, the car traffic is rather low-speed (unlike America), there's no that much car traffic in the first place (no place to park! So much of it is taxis and delivery trucks), and a lot of the streets are really narrow (also leads to low speed for cars).
Personally, I stick to sidewalks unless there's a cycling lane, or the street is so low-traffic and low-speed that I feel safe on it. So little residential back streets are fine, but the big boulevards, forget it.
IMO, I think that, at least in my area, they could do better just by painting cycling lanes on the sidewalks, and educating people to use the appropriate lane (cycling lanes for cyclists only; too often I see careless people walking in the clearly-marked cycling lane), and also by widening some of these sidewalks where possible. They could also stand to put some of the roads on diets to make wider sidewalks and cycling lanes. Maybe levy some more parking taxes to pay for it.
I really don't think this is it; yes, you see a few cyclists riding on the pavements alongside the main roads, but you see many more making their way along the side/back streets which don't even have a segregated pedestrian pavement - and don't need one.
> This causes lots of interactions between cyclists and pedestrians, which has led directly to the requirement for liability insurance that I mentioned before, because of so many pedestrian injuries.
It's not "so many", otherwise that would have happened decades ago. It's largely an (IMO over-) reaction to one dramatic case where a cyclist hit an elderly person who then needed a lot of expensive medical care.
Yes, many parts of Tokyo are like this, with lots of side/back streets that help cyclists avoid even needing to ride along the main boulevards. But not all of Tokyo is like this; it seems like every time I run into someone online who lives here, they completely forget that Ariake/Odaiba exists, or maybe they've never been there. There are a lot of places where you can't really take a side street because the geography prevents it, so cyclists are forced to divert to main streets for some distance (like over bridges) where they then share the sidewalk with pedestrians.
>It's largely an (IMO over-) reaction to one dramatic case where a cyclist hit an elderly person who then needed a lot of expensive medical care.
It's interesting how societies don't weigh risks rationally when it comes to cars. How many people (esp. pedestrians/cyclists) have gotten seriously injured or killed in car crashes? But that's just considered "unavoidable" for some odd reason, and little to no effort is made to avoid it in the future. But a cyclist hurts a pedestrian (and not even fatally, as is common with crashes involving motor vehicles) and suddenly everyone freaks out and wants to ban or restrict cycling. Why aren't they trying to ban car driving?
To be fair, I do see this insurance requirement as not too onerous. It really is possible to seriously injure a pedestrian when you're riding a bicycle at speeds well above those that pedestrians can travel, and we already require motor vehicle drivers to have a lot of insurance coverage. Bicycle insurance here is quite cheap really. Mine was only 3000 yen/year. So I don't feel this particular requirement is really an overreaction. However I do wish they'd be more proactive on the infrastructure side and do more to make cycling safer, and not by painting stupid bike icons on the sides of high-speed, high-traffic boulevards, which to me is an insult.
Ariake/Odaiba you just can't reasonably cycle at all IMO - e.g. you're simply not allowed to cycle across the Rainbow Bridge or through either of the Tokyo Minato tunnels (neither in the traffic lanes nor on the pavement) so if you're coming from the west you have to go 5-10km out of your way before you even start. I tried to go to the cycling course on Wakasu once and gave up, and I'm a pretty confident/experienced cyclist who can usually handle tangling with road traffic. Rather than it being a success story of cycling on pavements / segregated cycling infrastructure, I would bet that the mode share of cycling in Ariake/Odaiba is just a whole lot worse than Tokyo in general.
People cycle in Odaiba and Ariake all the time. Have you never been there?
No, they're not crossing the Rainbow Bridge, but they don't need to. They live in Ariake and cycle around it just fine. There's no need to cross the Sumida with a bike for most people.
>I would bet that the mode share of cycling in Ariake/Odaiba is just a whole lot worse than Tokyo in general.
It sounds like you've never been to Ariake. There's tons of bikes, and lots of bike parking at the various destinations there. You don't seem to realize that a lot of people actually live in (or close to) Ariake. Take a look at a satellite view on Google Maps: those big towers next to Ariake Gardens mall are housing towers. People live there. And people live in other parts of Koto-ku and cycle to Ariake, because it's close by bike. There's wide sidewalks and even actual bike lanes (separate from the road) in some places. But there's probably no one trying to cycle regularly between Ariake and the west side of the Sumida, but that doesn't make Ariake "un-cyclable".
> People cycle in Odaiba and Ariake all the time.
I saw fewer and emptier bike parking areas than on the "mainland", and fewer people cycling around.
> those big towers next to Ariake Gardens mall are housing towers. People live there.
Some people do sure. The fact remains that it's a lot less residential than most of Tokyo.
> But there's probably no one trying to cycle regularly between Ariake and the west side of the Sumida, but that doesn't make Ariake "un-cyclable"
Well, I was actually a person trying to cycle regularly between Ariake and Meguro at one point, so there was at least one, but it simply wasn't practical. No, one poor connection doesn't make a place un-cycleable, but it's indicative.
AFAICT, most cyclists in Tokyo do not ride long distances at all: they use their bikes to ride around their local neighborhood, and especially to get groceries. I've met a bunch of people who told me the only time they ride a bike is to get groceries, in fact. They don't use their bikes to ride halfway across the city; they use the trains for that. People who ride long distances seem to be pretty abnormal.
If I had my way, downtown areas would have very low speed limits, and narrower streets would discourage cars from going fast. People who need cars (or, make deliveries) could still use them, but the streets would be slow enough that pedestrians and cyclist would feel seen and in-control.
Thankfully, this is exactly the sort of urban design we're gradually seeing more of, at least in many bigger European cities.
New UK Department for Transport guidance is for all urban and residential streets to have 20 mph (~30 km/h) speed limits, down from 30 mph previously. It is, however, still up to local authorities to actually set those limits. In London, most streets have been 20 mph for a while now.