TO:
Hideaki Minami, Staff,
Global Environmental Policy Division, Kyoto City
488 Mae-cho, Kamihonnoujimae-cho, Teramachi-Oike, Nakagyo-ku,
Kyoto City, Kyoto Prefecture
604-8571 Japan
Tel: +81-75/222-3452
Fax: +81-75/222-4039
Email: [email protected]

 

Hello,

 

Your website http://www.iclei.org/?id=1178 includes these priorities for the Miyako Agenda 21 Forum:

 

Priority Four: Building an ecotourism-oriented city
The fourth priority is the focus of the ecotourism group, which promotes the implementation of environmental initiatives by accommodation facilities, including ecohotels. The group has published the document, Towards Kyoto, an Ecotourism City, and succeeded in strengthening ties with accommodation facilities eager to undertake environmental measures. The ecomuseums group participates and cooperates in projects to preserve the natural surroundings of traditional rural communities.

Priority Five: Creating an environmentally friendly transportation system
The creation of an environmentally friendly transportation system group is addressing the fifth priority by undertaking pilot projects that include promoting the use of public transportation and bicycles through a park-and-ride system. The group has developed a traffic plan for the city center entitled Towards Kyoto, a Pedestrian City. Many proposals for reforming the transportation system in the city center have been received from citizens.

Also, The April 23, 2007 report on Kyoto Transportation Demand Management icludes:

As an approach to realize “human and public transportation-oriented” transportation system, LRT (Light Rail Transit), a new public transportation system which is human and environment-friendly, is being studied.

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As an American tourist in Kyoto for over a month, I have developed some ideas along the line of the two efforts above.  They are contained in a new website - at http://geocities.com/ImproveKyoto

It's main page calls for a tourist-oriented light rail system in central Kyoto, among other ideas.  They could attract many more tourists to Kyoto, and please residents as well. 

 

Hope you find this helpful,

 

Van Sloan

http://SQ.4mg.com/vansloan.htm  for information about my background and interests

 

Ideas to Improve Kyoto, Japan
		AROUND THE TRAIN STATION: Welcome visitors into a World Heritage city with landscaped areas for strolling, shopping malls of upscale Japanese items.  Develop an 1890's electric trolley system connecting the 3 major temples near the station and the riverfront.  This could start as a motorized trolley. Put electric wires on major streets of the area underground. Plant more trees, especially cherry and maples. ALONG THE RIVER: Looking to Paris and Seville as models, make the rivebanks tourist-friendly with trees, places to eat, events, many benches for people-watching, etc. Develop a scenic walkway between the train bridges and Gion. Build one or more dams for enought water depth to allow small pleasure boats on the river. CONNECT THE TEMPLE AREAS with walkways reminiscent of old Kyoto: For examples, use the "philosopher's walk" or the attractive low buildings between Taizoin temple and Shunkoin temple. Encourage shops and small restaurants along the walkways, but insist they be in traditional style buildings - as on the 'Higashiyama Path' area around the Yasaka pagoda.
		1897 trolley crossing the Kamogawa river
							One stop of the new trolley should be at this Toji pagoda
		Kamogawa River - another trolley stop
							Gion - attractive
		Gion - ugly (a block away) Editorial in The Japan Times of Sept. 23, 2007: "Beautifying Kyoto, at last.  In early September, the Kyoto city government began enforcing regulations against ugliness in the city. Yes, ugliness. The mayor of Kyoto, Yorikane Masumoto, and his municipal government found the political will to think beyond the immediate concerns of day-to-day business demands, and to consider how Kyoto, once one of the world's most beautiful cities, could look a lot better. "Part of the need for beautifying is the realization that Kyoto's future, and Japan's as well, may well depend upon tourism. No one goes to Kyoto to shop at discount stores, stare at tangled wires or photograph concrete high-rises. They go for tea ceremonies, kaiseki meals, traditional shops and long walks along pretty streets. When the 'borrowed scenery' behind the walls of Kyoto's magnificent temple gardens consists of unsightly apartment blocks and objectionable office buildings, the flavor of the whole city is diluted. World tourism numbers show that few people travel to ugly places."   page by Van Sloan of USA. Click for information on him.
							Philosopher's Walk, Kyoto