The Tokyo Metropolitan Region has a population of 12.8 million and the number of bicycles owned is 8.4 million, which equates to 1 out of 1.5 persons owning a bicycle. Those bicycles are used for various purposes including shopping, commuting, working, leisure and exercises. Some trips by bicycle are from origins to final destinations while others are from origins to transport hubs, such as railway stations. In the Central Tokyo Metropolis, consisting of 23 wards, the modal share of bicycle itself is 8%, and that of the combination of bicycle and public transport (e.g. railway) is also 8%, so 16% of trips contain the bicycle mode (Census 2000).
This relatively high bicycle usage has contributed to reducing the environmental burden and traffic congestion caused by motorized transport modes, not only by taking short trips, but also by promoting public transport usage for longer trips through easy access at hubs. In Tokyo Metropolitan Region, bicycle parking facilities have been developed around most of the heavy rail stations to encourage such trip patterns.
Despite the above, the environment to promote appropriate bicycle usage is still in the process of development and requires a number of factors to be improved. For example, although some stations allow bicycle parking facilities nearby, others keep them a little far away (e.g. 300m from the station), which generates illegal parking of bicycles on the street close to the stations. Another issue is that the proportion of bicycle path length to road length in Japan is lower than other (western) developed countries. This causes a mixture of bicycle use with motorized vehicles on roads, which causes traffic accidents.
With those issues in mind, Tokyo Metropolitan Government formulated the “Safe Bicycle Riding Promotion Plan” in January 2007. This plan includes four main measures as follows:
- Reducing illegally-parked bicycles
- Developing bicycle paths
- Improving bicycle traffic manners
- Improving bicycle mechanics
Under these measures, the Metropolitan Government has been conducting actions for each area one by one, considering different situations of various areas in Tokyo, cooperating with other stakeholders.
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