To many environmentalists, a city where most people get around by public transportation and bicycles may seem like a dream, but it’s also not without its share of daily nuisances.

The person who originally tweeted the above photo had said, “The area around this building is very tight due to illegally parked bikes… After I open shop I put out this sign and bikes don’t park here any more.” Over 15,000 Twitter users have agreed and called this the greatest “no parking” sign ever made.

In key locations like train stations and shopping centers, visitors often have to pay to park their bicycles due to space considerations. It’s a necessary evil unfortunately as local businesses in dense urban areas can’t survive if their doors are barricaded by bikes.

However, the cities can only do so much to enforce parking regulations and people realize this, parking their bikes wherever they see fit with impunity. In this photo of a typical no-bike-parking zone you might be able to glimpse the warning sign through a thicket of illegally parked bikes.

So how did this one sign dissuade bicycle parkers who are generally fearless of punishments such as fines and towings? Here is the translation:

These are unwanted bicycles
All bikes here are abandoned. Please use freely.

Beautiful isn’t it? Rather than threaten a punishment that may or (probably) may not come, simply by parking your bike in the vicinity of this sign you agree to relinquish your rights to it. This also creates jobs by turning so-called “bike thieves” into legitimate bike-recyclers and thus courageous eco-warriors.

Commenters agreed saying, “This is way more effective than ‘no-parking’ signs” and “That’s both effective and smart!” Indeed in a land were you could lose you properly parked bike at any given time it would take some industrial strength balls to park your bicycle there and not expect it to be gone by the time you come back.

Still, it’s kind of sad that we have to appeal to people’s general distrust of one another. Signs like this would probably be unnecessary if people would just take the time to arrange and straighten out the bikes around where they want to park so that everyone can properly share and enjoy the extremely limited space available here in Japan.

Source: Twitter @i_hirose
Original Article by Yayoi Saginomiya
Regular sign image: RocketNews24

https://twitter.com/i_hirose/statuses/479960018540711937
[ Read in Japanese ]