Bicycle parking chaos in Osaka
A video report about how the community around Teradacho station in Osaka is dealing with the problem of hundreds of parked bicycles clogging the streets:
The station had an officially designated bicycle parking area that can only fit about 300 bicycles, but that didn’t stop hundreds of people who would arrive after the lot was full. Bikes were pretty much parked anywhere along the sidewalks and streets, making a huge mess.
I don’t entirely understand why, but the report says that because there was a shortage of available parking locations, areas around the station were not designated as illegal bicycle parking zones. As a result, bicycles parked in in positions blocking parts of the sidewalk and road were not ticketed or forcibly removed.
The focus of the report is on Mr. Nakamura, the owner of a boxing gym near the station. Nakamura acts a volunteer bicycle parking manners enforcer, standing around for hours forcing people to re-park their bicycles in places he decides. All his efforts are ultimately meaningless, as the sheer volume of bicycles means there will always be parking chaos.
Real results were only achieved in the last couple years, as Osaka City and JR cooperated in erecting barriers and having extra staff and volunteers monitor the parking areas. The situation has now changed completely, and bicycles no longer clog the roads and sidewalks.
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…the guy who fell HAHAHAHAHAH
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some osaka people… when they get mad its kinda scary. lol
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Saw this special back when it first aired on TV. Screw that guy, knocking people over and grabbing them, getting in peoples’ faces. He’s an asshole.
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Boxing extraordinaire or not, if that fkkin white-gloved tool laid just one hand on me I’d be compelled to land one of my infamous British headbutts.
Fkkin po-po should arrest his sorry a ss.
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How old are you ? 14 ? Or are you older but just plain stupid ?
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I’m 14 and a mo-fo’ing half biYACH!
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LOL @ the guy falling! I wish i understood what he said…
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“Omae nani shiton nen kora!”
Or, “What the fk are you doing you safety-white-gloved knt?!”
Which is pretty much how everyone talks in Osaka.
Respectfully,
Your friendly neighbourhood translating 14 and a half year old Colonel Sausage
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yeah, this guy should have had a talking to from the police. he’s quite clearly impeding people, grabbing them, harassing them…
I think that goes a little beyond the duties of a “volunteer bicycle parking manners enforcer”, which I suspect means “self-appointed busybody”
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The problem the government just doesn’t get is that your typical part-time worker can’t afford to spend 2000 yen a month just to “legally” park a bicycle.
But, since our leaders haven’t ridden bicycles since they got into office, if ever, they don’t understand this.
Meanwhile, why hasn’t someone gone down there with a friend with a video camera, done a little Italian soccer player performance and sued this guy for assault and battery?
Oh, I forgot. It’s because the J cops never do anything.
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I think Japan should motivate people to use their bicycle… specially in this pro-environment everything, we are in.
Everybody should ride his bicycle, and minimize using cars. Why doens japan hate bicycle so much on the street…I guess for japanese it look chaos… but Japan should be proud of that, not ban it… I love riding my bicycle, they should ban cars, and let bicycle ride roads (there would be plenty of parking spot without cars)…Bicycle revolution^O^!
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Luckily at my station there wasn’t a guy that was this desperate to stop what would be the supposed “illegal” parking near and in front of the station. Recently, they’ve cracked down on people parking near the entrance and in the locations with the closest access to the station, but I think that’s also because they put up all the Christmas decorations in the area that used to have bikes frequently park there. Unfortunately, the replacement we have free in a bicycle parking garage, but it has limited hours of operation, meaning people that leave extremely early park in the illegal spot anyway or if you come after 10PM you are SOL because the parking garage closes with the mall attached to the station. Very inconvenient for the average person anyway. But, my station didn’t have bicycles flowing out on the street before the crack down either.
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I am an Italian and believe me, I do so I would like the parking there and be able to live at least for a month in Japan!
I love you all and I hope that one day I will have the good fortune to visit!
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That video is awfully old. I walk past that part of the street next to the station nearly every day and it’s still a disaster area. The entire station is surrounded by an obnoxious tangle of bikes all the time, and sometimes it stretches quite a distance from the station. So…What exactly has been done about it?…
It’s nearly impossible to walk through that path where all of the bicycles are supposed to be neatly lined up, never mind the street in front of the station itself.
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