Underground Bike Parking in Japan

And now, for something completely different.

While a lot of the local news recently has been negative, let’s take a second to forget our local issues for a moment and celebrate a new innovation in bicycle parking coming to us from the Land of the Rising Sun.

The above video shows a new, automated, bicycle parking system where riders place their bicycle in the track and it is taken in a machine and stored underground.  It takes about ten seconds to retrieve your bicycle when you wish it returned, which I guess could lead to some delays at rush hour, but is actually less  time than it takes me to free my bicycle after shackeling it to a bike parking area.  A poster showing how the storage works underground can be found after the jump.

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Image via dannychoo.com

  • This is insane! I mean that in the best way… what an amazing solution! I wonder how much it costs and what the physical requirements are to install one of these things…

    Seems to me it would be very easy to incorporate into new high-rise construction

  • Yeesh. They would never build one of those in the U.S..

  • Living in Japan I see a lot of vertical parking like this for cars but never for bikes – so far.
    It looks great but I guess it has the same disadvantages as the car version:

    – Tends to be more expensive than regular car parks
    – Waiting time for each vehicle is actually quite long and just 2 or 3 people in front of you can mean a wait of 10 to 20 minutes. The bike version looks quicker but even so…

    Still, it’s definitely better than a lot of bike parking currently available.

  • kyle

    ooohh…they got cool stuff in Japan, they also got good drivers too
    http://japansugoi.com/wordpress/good-parking-skills-required-in-japa/

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