I want to ride my bicycle

I was thinking of getting a bike until I looked into the logistics of it. It's kind of illegal to park your bike on the footpath, although you wouldn't think that from simple observation. Some places go to extremes to prevent people from parking their bikes in front of their stores, like the above monstrosity found in front of Starbucks. It looks much worse than a couple of bikes ever would.

I saw a guy pull up in front of a security guard at Roppongi Hills once, and proceed to chain his bike to the roadside rail. The guard came over to tell him he couldn't park there and the guy just told him to sod off and walked inside.

Parking

In Tokyo, if you want to buy a car you have to first prove that you own a space to keep it. This often means buying a space in a garage such as this. Parking garages often don't have any drive around space. Instead they act like a tall vertical tie rack for cars. Each car has a metal platform as a space, and when you leave the car the carousel lifts it up and in its place is another free platform for the next car. This maximises the space used in a garage.

The picture above is a small version being used for a block of low rise apartments. Note the turntable to allow the cars to get in and out in the smallest possible space.