If You Want to Buy a Car in Japan....
Channel: Streetfilms®
Date: 2016-02-09

Here's a Streetfilms shortie from Tokyo about the complexities of car ownership.

I've been gathering numerous interviews with parking experts - with plans on publishing a 3-part series on parking policy sometime before mid-2016. In conducting some of these interviews, I've been enlightened to the fact that in Tokyo, if you want to buy a car the process is much more complicated than almost anywhere in the world.

Ultimately the biggest obstacle: you need to prove that you have somewhere to park it and need to present those documents for approval to your local council. That parking space could be inconveniently many miles away from your residence. It will likely cost you a bundle. Add to that yearly taxes, high parking fees wherever you're driving (to park again) and expressways with tolls, and you can see why many city residents choose to ride the efficient public transit system.

Streetfilms correspondent Joe Baur happened to be in Japan, so he grabbed this interview for me with Byron Kidd, from Tokyo By Bike. Since he had quite a good deal to say, I thought it'd be nice to give some longer excerpts to our viewers before inserting his quotes into our ambitious series.