Bicycle Transportation in Tokyo

Bicycles in Tokyo come in all shapes and sizes. You have your carbon fiber road bikes, track bikes, your rusted out old clunkers and the newer (some older) power assist bikes. The power assist were more prolific than I have seen anywhere and could be an Asian phenomenon considering the number of scooters that are used in these countries for basic transportation. The one pictured at right is a power assist bike that has what appears to be a refrigerator on the bike rack for deliveries of all sorts of food or whatever needs to be kept cold. It could just be a convenient box they had that would latch.
Overall, I was impressed with how many of these makeshift cargo bikes I saw and what was peculiar was how the racks don't seem any more stout than ours in the U.S.

I have much hope for cycling when I see women feeling comfortable on their bikes. The next population that is good to see are gentlemen in suits looking dapper doing business on a bike. This particular fellow doesn't look like a spring chicken, yet he's getting what he needs done and looking pretty good while doing it.
The riding on the sidewalk was a bit unnerving to me, but my fellow pedestrians didn't seem to care and I didn't see any conflicts just walking around the City.
Delineation of different modes happened some places, but it wasn't consistent. I am still worried about how motorists deal with cyclists at intersections.
The examples of these two pictures show a nice delineation on the bottom example and no such marking on the second. I'd be curious what their crash rates are compared to European practice. There is definitely a good amount of use in some of the older parts of town and a wide variety of facilities that are provided.
This location near the Imperial Palace was well delinated, but not heavily used. It may be a current best practice (it looks fairly new), but on my next trip it would be great to get together with the technical folks that are studying these facilities to learn more about the experience.

Shibuya Pedestrian Scramble

I took the Hanzomon Line from Nagatacho to Shibuya at about 8:30 PM upon arrival and found a traffic engineer's nightmare. In the picture, there are pedestrians everywhere streaming from all directions imaginable in what seems to be lightly organized chaos. My neighbor described it as Times Square multipled by ten, but I am inclined to give Times Square a little more credit because of the size of the buildings. Needless to say however, this is one amazing intersection and the surrounding neighborhood is like one large department store. 

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Tokyo Transportation Observations

Variable message sign for arterial traffic. It appears to be displaying some sort of routing information.
The arterial are fairly wide, yet they seem to have very fine distinctions between these streets and when you enter into a neighborhood.
The intersections are fairly straight forward and similar to ours. The signal heads appear to be displayed quite a bit differently and I need to spend some time to sort out the horizontal display and the additional signal heads. It doesn't appear they use flashing yellow arrows (at least from what I can see thus far).
The following pedestrian indication shows a don't walk indication AND a relative time to Walk "countdown" the bars on the display to the right of the pedestrian indication show how long until it will go WALK. It also lights up only when the button is pushed, thus it is a nice confirmation that the call has been registered.
The freeway system is fairly well developed and is a mix between freeways, grade separated arterials, and busy streets.

UTMS Japan - Tokyo Visit

I am in Tokyo to present information about how the City of Portland is using traffic signals to reduce our environmental load. The presentation is approximately 18 hours from when I landed at Narita airport, so I may not be at my best without another cup of coffee!

Here are the initial pictures from my visit. The first photo is the view from my hotel room which is the Grand Prince Hotel Akasaka. I am on the 35th Floor and the room is spacious and comfortable. The view is very nice and I am close to the Imperial Palace and the Nagatacho Station on the Hanzomon Line. It's a great spot to start the visit.
I have brought gifts for my hosts as is customary in Japan. I found some great things to put in the Made in Oregon bag including candleholders made from recycled bike parts from Resource Revival, a variety of chocolate covered treats from the Made in Oregon store, chocolate covered coffee beans from Coffee People and coffee from Portland Roasting. I got a book from Powells at the airport that includes aerial photos of Portland and its surroundings, so I think this will be recieved well.
The initial perspectives I have on arrivals is that Tokyo is a late night town. I awoke at 5:30 AM today and was on the streets by 6. Walking around I found there weren't many shops open until 7 AM, even the coffee shops and no one has free WiFi. I am stuck paying $20 equivalent at the hotel! There was a rumor that McDonalds had free WiFi, but it turned out false (at least the one that I went to).
I am doing a bit of catch up with work email as well since I am travelling on behalf of the City and am grateful for the opportunity to participate in this exchange.
I am keeping an eye out for transportation facilities as always and found a few things that are worth considering for Portland.
The first example was a cross bike (adjacent to the crosswalk) that creates some facilities for people on bicycles that wouldn't otherwise have a connection clearly delineated. I'd be interested in their practice for implementation and when they choose to do this off-street and when on-street. I probably won't have much opportunity to talk with bicycle planners at this conference, since is primarily technology related.
The pedestrian indications are a mixed bag and they may be in the transition phase between the old style, which appear to be backlit light blue signs for walk and red don't walk indications. It appears they are going to a green walking person and a red don't walk. They flash the Walk indication to indicate when to clear the intersection, which is slightly different from our message. It does make me wonder whether we should flash the Walk when it is becoming stale and you're close to changing. It's a pretty small change that could improve information for peds.
They also add a sign adjacent to the pedestrian indications which I can't translate. I will ask about this at the meeting.