Video: Busiest Pedestrian Crossing in the World

Eric Fredericks • Thursday March 23, 2006

This is supposedly the busiest pedestrian crossing in the world at Shibuya Station in Tokyo, Japan. Watch how long the pedestrians get to cross in the full traffic light cycle! I would have a hard time seeing our traffic engineers in most places the U.S. implementing this any time soon. Although, it is being used in heavy pedestrian places throughout the U.S., including Champaign, Illinois at the University of Illinois campus and in San Diego in the Gaslamp Quarter.

I did not get to visit Shibuya (at least I don’t think I did) when I visited Tokyo in 2003. However, I saw many places just like it. I really hope I get to return to Tokyo, it is an amazing city. Somehow, my friend and I managed to navigate their clean and efficient subway system (the best I have ever ridden). Quite impressive when you consider that THIS is your system map! We stayed near the Akasaka Station.

As you can tell by the lovely embedded video above, I am trying something new for our site. I plan on blogging interesting videos I come across online related to walkability. I plan on shooting some of my own in the future, when I have better technological capabilities. Posting the video is easy, thanks to my good friend’s site, YouTube. In fact, I added a video I shot to an earlier article I wrote on the Sacramento Farmers’ Market.
If you have not visited YouTube yet, you really must check it out.