A few years ago I wrote about travelling to Corvallis. Today, I learned that there is an online petition to bring reliable, frequent passenger rail to Corvallis. If you would be more likely to visit Corvallis if passenger rail service existed, please consider adding your name to the petition.
Car-free travel in Japan is wonderful and easy. I’m certain it’s one of the best places to visit without a car.
Everything you’ve heard about train travel in Japan is true: it’s fast, punctual, frequent and comfortable. Japan’s trains, including those in the transit systems of the places we visited, were the highlight of our vacation. Our 14-day Japan Rail Passes (about $580 CAD each) were useful for intercity travel and even hopping around Tokyo on the famous Yamanote Line.
We zipped between Tokyo, Nagano, Nagoya, Kyoto and Hiroshima using the super-fast Shinkansen bullet trains, which easily exceeded our expectations. Zooming from Hiroshima to Tokyo (800 km) in a mere five hours is impressive, and puts to shame Amtrak’s eight hour travel time between Vancouver and Portland (500 km).
Even the train station architecture is amazing in some places. Kyoto Station is a marvel from top to bottom, so much so that we decided to have our anniversary dinner there. We found a quiet corner on an upper level of the station, and we munched on takeout while enjoying a perfect view of the orange and blue lights of nearby Kyoto Tower.
Trains within cities, particularly the legendary ones in Tokyo, were easy to navigate and often very fast and frequent. Taras Grescoe’s chapter on Tokyo in Straphanger: Saving Our Cities and Ourselves from the Automobile is the perfect introduction to the city’s transit system and helped me to appreciate the astounding flow of people at busy stations like Shinjuku and Shibuya.
We wandered around cities using a combination of transit and walking, which is an ideal way to explore. Walking seems safe thanks to thoughtful pedestrian crossings, separate facilities (such as the many car-free walkways in Tokyo), and quiet side streets where vehicles are rare and attentive.
Walking in Japan reveals the joys of serendipity. We got lost. A lot. We learned quickly that it can be very frustrating to find a particular address in parts of Japan. We enjoyed ourselves much more when we let go of searching for specific places and needing to know where we were. Wandering, exploring and discovering were consistently more rewarding.
The bonus of combining walking and transit is that you can never be really lost. Eventually you find a transit stop or station and you can usually at least navigate back to your accommodation from there.
Walking is the best way to experience Japan’s large cities since there is so much to see everywhere, indoors and outdoors. Department stores aren’t just for shopping — if you walk through them you will find food (often on the lower levels), restaurants (often on the upper levels), and maybe even bowling alleys or rooftop gardens. In, over and around transit stations are shops, restaurants, and pachinko parlours.
Japan also reminded me of something very simple that makes it easy to travel car-free: abundant washrooms. I’ve never understood in Vancouver why our transit stations, particularly our new Canada Line stations and Waterfront Station with all its amenities, don’t have public washrooms. There are washrooms everywhere in Japan, and travellers can reliably count on finding them at transit and train stations. It’s a simple thing, but something Vancouver is strangely reluctant to provide unless you consider the often-broken soaking wet automatic toilets in the ad-laden metal boxes adequate.
We only rode bicycles on the Shimanami Kaido cycling route (more on this in a future blog post), but we loved observing all the people riding bikes everywhere we travelled in Japan.
The weather was sticky, humid and in the 30s every day, but this didn’t seem to stop anyone from riding their bikes in everyday clothes.
In North America, we often hear that when children enter the picture it will be time to get a car or at least drive more, and Japan showed us that families can stick to bicycles for most of their transportation needs. When I saw a mother with one child in a front seat and one in a back seat on her bicycle, I thought, “right on!” because I don’t see this very often in Vancouver. I soon realized she wasn’t doing anything extraordinary. Over the course of our two-week vacation, we saw many parents (mostly mothers) travelling with multiple children on their bicycles and they didn’t need fancy cargo bikes, trailers, bakfiets or other expensive equipment to do this. Bike shops in Japan sell a variety of bicycles that are already equipped for carrying children.
Japan changed my opinion on sidewalk cycling. Prior to travelling there, I was known for grumbling whenever I would see someone riding their bike on the sidewalk. Now I see that sidewalk cycling can work, even in a busy city like Tokyo, if people pay attention to each other and the cycling is slow.
If you’re planning a trip to Japan, you may be interested in some of the other things we enjoyed:
This past spring, inspired by Amy Logan’s hard stare blog, I walked the full 11 km of the Arbutus Corridor with Kevin and our friend Matt. Now that the leaves in Vancouver are turning beautiful shades of red, orange and yellow, I find myself thinking about the Arbutus Corridor and wondering how it looks at this time of year.
We spent four hours on our walk, which began at West 1st Avenue and Fir Street and ended at the Marine Drive Canada Line Station. Our travel time included a lengthy stop for lunch in Kerrisdale, which was the perfect place to take a break.
What we enjoyed most about this walk, aside from the act of travelling along rail tracks, were the many gardens that lined the route:
Community Garden, West 1st Avenue & Fir Street
Cypress Community Garden Clean-up Party
Scarecrow, Arbutus Victory Gardens
(photo by Matt Reimer)
Guerrilla Garden
Walking the Arbutus Corridor is a great way to feel like you’ve escaped the city even though the gentle hum of vehicles is never far away.
Holly
(photo by Matt Reimer)
There are also surprises to be found on the tracks if you look carefully:
Steel Magnolias DVD
Modes of transportation: Bus (BoltBus, Amtrak, Greyhound or Quick Shuttle) or train (Amtrak), walking and public transit
Length of time: Approximately 3 1/2 to 4 1/2 hours each way depending on the mode of transportation and your luck at the border crossing
Transportation cost: Anywhere from approximately $20-$135 per person round-trip depending on whether you take the bus or train and how far you book in advance
As most Vancouverites know, Seattle is an easy car-free weekend trip. There is no shortage of transportation options between the two cities. In July, Kevin and I travelled there by the relatively new BoltBus express service between Vancouver and Seattle.
We were pleasantly surprised by how much we enjoyed the journey. The train is the environmentally-friendly choice and is certainly more comfortable, but BoltBus is cheap and (for us, at least) has a better schedule. As you’ll learn if you take BoltBus, prices fluctuate depending on your luck and how early you buy your bus ticket. Our trip cost us $28.00 return per ticket.
BoltBus provides friendly and helpful drivers, seatbelts, a washroom and (slow) WiFi, and will transport unboxed bicycles if there is space in the compartments under the coach. There is no additional charge for travelling with a bicycle if it’s your only piece of baggage under the coach, but be warned that bike reservations aren’t possible and space isn’t guaranteed.
We spent the first day of our weekend holiday walking around the city, which is a great way to see some of Seattle’s charming neighbourhoods. We started downtown with breakfast at Pike Place Market and then walked all the way to Ballard via Queen Anne and Fremont.
Fremont is one of our favourite places to visit in Seattle. We never tire of the neighbourhood’s fun art, which includes a statue of Lenin, a large troll under a bridge, Waiting for the Interurban, and other works.
Waiting for the Interurban: Seattle Rain Edition
(photo by Xurxo Martinez)
When we stopped in Fremont on our recent visit we were pleased to stumble upon the Westcoast Kickball League 2012 Championship, which was both competitive and highly entertaining to watch.
Westcoast Kickball League 2012 Championship
(photo by Andy Pixel)
The entertainment continued when we reached Ballard, a historic neighbourhood with an abundance of beautiful brick buildings and great food and shopping. In Ballard we ran into a Christmas in July event and found Santa Clauses, Mrs. Clauses and elves all along Market Street.
Ballard treated us to a relaxing late afternoon and early evening. We enjoyed good tea and a too-long Scrabble game at Miro Tea and topped off our time in the neighbourhood with a delicious vegetarian Vietnamese dinner at Monkey Bridge Restaurant.
We departed Ballard on a city bus, which arrived promptly and got us to our transfer point perfectly on time so that we could immediately hop on another bus travelling to the Capitol Hill neighbourhood. We wrapped up the day at the Elliott Bay Book Company, which is probably our favourite bookstore after Powell’s in Portland.
We spent the Sunday of our Seattle weekend at Pike Place Market and a Mariners baseball game. We watched an exciting game and the tickets were very reasonably priced at about $13 apiece.
I hope it won’t be too long before we return to Seattle.
A few months ago, when the weather was better than it is currently, Kevin and I cycled to and around Sea Island and Iona Island in Richmond. The area is popular with cyclists, particularly exercise cyclists who ride rapidly around the flat roads. This was our first trip to this area of Richmond, aside from visiting the airport, and we decided to go there after skimming through the expanded and updated guidebook, Easy Cycling around Vancouver by Jean & Norman Cousins (2011).
We borrowed Easy Cycling around Vancouver from the public library because it happened to be checked in on a day we popped by to browse the travel section. In the past we’ve borrowed other local guidebooks and they disappointed us when we discovered the directions began with: “Drive to X and unload bicycles from your car…” This guidebook is different! The authors include transit directions to route starting points, where taking transit is feasible. Because of this and our success with the Iona Island route they outline, we will probably buy a copy of this book before we head out on our next local cycling adventure.
Sea Island and Iona Island are very easy to access without a car. If you want to do a full-day ride, you can start in Vancouver and bike to Richmond via the Canada Line pedestrian/bicycle bridge.
If you’re looking for a shorter adventure, take your bike on the Canada Line to Templeton Station and start riding from there. The journey is about 20 km round-trip from Templeton Station.
If you travel over the Canada Line bridge, as we did, you will be pleasantly greeted by a helpful cycling map as soon as you enter Richmond.
From the Canada Line bridge, head in the direction of Sea Island Way to make the connection to Grauer Road on Sea Island. This is the trickiest part of the ride, but hopefully the Google Street View images below will help (click on the images to see them in Google Maps). Sea Island Way has a bike lane and looks calm in this photo, but it was scary the day we rode it. Large trucks were travelling very fast and close to us. If we do this ride again, we would probably walk our bikes on the sidewalk; it’s also easier to make the connection to Grauer Road from there.
Sea Island Way (Google Street View image)
Take the first right off Sea Island Way and you’ll find a gap where you can take your bike onto various pathways. Follow the one in the middle, which will take you to Grauer Road. Keep following Grauer Road and soon enough you’ll either arrive at or see signs directing you to points of interest, such as Flight Path Park and McDonald Beach Park and Iona Beach Regional Park.
Connection to Grauer Road (Google Street View image)
Unless you love dogs, need a washroom or water, or like gawking at fancy Southlands homes, you can skip McDonald Beach Park and ride straight through to Iona Beach Regional Park. On the way you’ll pass some unusual but beautiful sights.
Iona Beach Regional Park, where the Fraser River meets the Straight of Georgia, is definitely the highlight of this cycling trip. Over 300 bird species feed and rest in the park, and it’s an important migration route for many shorebirds.
Red-winged blackbird taking flight
The park is also home to the Iona Jetty, which transports treated wastewater from the nearby Iona Island Wastewater Treatment Plant into the Straight of Georgia.
Iona Jetty
Park visitors can walk or cycle 4 km to the end of the jetty. We had very good weather for the ride, but were still glad for the gloves and windproof clothing we had with us. The wind can be fierce on the jetty even on a perfect day! The reward for travelling a long way on loose gravel, aside from being able to say that you walked or cycled the “poop pipe,” is the view when you reach the end: mountains, sea and birds. It’s not uncommon for eagles to hang out near the end of the jetty. Portable washroom facilities are available.
Our bicycles near the end of the jetty
Iona Jetty path
When visiting Sea Island and Iona Island, definitely build in some time to watch airplanes land. You’ll easily spot the best viewing locations because so many people drive to Sea Island and park their cars for hours to get a close-up view.
Posted in Bike, Destination
Tagged Cycling, Guidebooks, Iona Island, Metro Vancouver, Richmond, Sea Island
