Where Tokyo Children Learn to Ride: Suginami Children's Traffic Park

In most countries, a child learns to ride a bicycle on the street in front of the house. It is rarely the best place. Cars pass, people walk by, and nobody stops when the child falls.

In Suginami Ward, on the bank of the Zenpukuji River, there is a small park built for exactly this purpose. Suginami Children’s Traffic Park has traffic lights that change, road signs, painted crossings and even a railway crossing. The bicycles for riding through it are lent out free of charge.

This is not a tourist attraction. It is a quiet ward park for local families, and it is one of the more charming things you can stumble upon in western Tokyo.

Almost Everything Here Is Free

The park keeps more than 180 bicycles and pedal-powered go-karts. You fill in a short application form at the counter with your name and address, and the loan is free. One application gives you thirty minutes.

Bicycles are lent from the age of four. The single-seat go-karts are for primary school children; the two-seat ones are for a small child with an adult, and one turn takes you twice around the course. For children still too small to pedal, there are little push-along cars.

Please Read This Before You Plan a Visit

One honest warning, because it decides whether this park is useful to you at all. According to the ward’s own guidance, the bicycles may only be used by children of junior high school age or younger, together with the adult accompanying them. A group of adults cannot simply borrow bicycles and ride around. This is a place where children practise, and the adults ride alongside them.

If you are travelling without children, you can still walk in, look at the course and visit the steam locomotive. But the bicycles are not for you.

The Sizes Are All There

What makes this park genuinely useful for a family is that the bicycles come in every size from 14 to 26 inches, some with training wheels. Very few places let a child sit on several sizes before anyone buys anything.

On choosing a size, the makers give the clearest advice. Bridgestone Cycle writes that it is important to choose a size where the toes of both feet reach the ground. A bicycle bought one size too large, so that the child “grows into it”, is a bicycle the child cannot stop safely.

The published height guidance (Bridgestone Cycle) runs as follows.

• 14 inch: height 97–112 cm
• 16 inch: height 101–118 cm
• 18 inch: height 107–123 cm
• 20 inch: height 110–134 cm
• 22 inch: height 116–140 cm
• 24 inch: height 122–145 cm

Dimensions differ between makers and models, so please treat these as a guide and decide by sitting on the bicycle itself.

A 1.3 km Course With Real Signals

The course through the park runs about 1.3 km. The signals change, the signs are the same ones used on Japanese roads, and there is a level crossing. Children learn where to stop and how long to wait by riding, which works rather better than explaining it at a table.

You may also ride your own bicycle on the course. In that case you fill in a course application form and attach a green ribbon to the bicycle first. The rental practice bicycles may not leave the park for the cycling path outside; bicycles with training wheels may use it when an adult comes along.

A Real Steam Locomotive at the Far End

Behind a ticket gate marked “Suginami Station” in Japanese stands a black locomotive. D51 254 is not a model or a replica. It worked.

According to preservation records, it was built on 16 December 1939 at the National Railways’ Takatori Works, and was withdrawn from service on 21 October 1974 at Nagato in western Japan. In that same year it was brought here from the National Railways’ Ōmiya Works. It ran for thirty-five years, and it has now stood in this park for more than fifty.

A small sign in hiragana, written for children, asks them not to climb on it because it is dangerous. You look at it from outside the fence. Even from there, the size of the driving wheels is worth the walk.

→ Related, in the same ward, for trains that still run: Kamiigusa Station: A Quiet Railfan Spot in West Tokyo

Please Treat It as What It Is

This is a ward park for local children, not a sightseeing facility. Entry and the bicycles are free because the park is not a business.

• There are no rubbish bins. Everything you bring in, including picnic containers and nappies, goes home with you
• No pets. Dogs and cats cannot be brought into the park
• No smoking anywhere in the park
• Kick scooters, skateboards and unicycles are not allowed, and neither are ball games or skipping ropes
• The course belongs to the children practising on it. Please do not stand on it to take photographs

There is no car park, and the ward asks visitors not to come by car.

Practical Information

• Name: Suginami Children’s Traffic Park (Suginami Ward)
• Address: 1-22-13 Naritanishi, Suginami City, Tokyo
• Open: 8:30 to 17:00
• Bicycles, go-karts and the toddler corner: 9:00 to 16:30
• Closed: 29 December to 3 January
• Admission and loans: free, with a short application form
• Bicycles: from age four, for children of junior high school age or younger and the adult with them, thirty minutes per application
• Parking: none
• Enquiries: Suginami City, Parks and Greenery Section, 03-5307-0740

Hours, closing days and the loan conditions can change. Please check the ward’s official page before you set out.

Getting There

• By train: about 12 minutes on foot from Hamadayama Station on the Keio Inokashira Line
• By bus: the ward’s community bus “Sugimaru” (Keyaki route, between JR Asagaya Station and Keio Hamadayama Station) stops at Jidō Kōtsū Kōen Iriguchi, three minutes on foot. From Asagaya the ride takes about eleven minutes

The park sits along the Zenpukuji River green belt, and walking back beside the water is the pleasant way to end the visit.

If You Would Rather Ride in Tokyo Yourself

Since the bicycles here are for children, adults who want to ride in Tokyo need a different answer. There is a guided bicycle tour of about three hours that takes in the area around the Imperial Palace and Shibuya, departing at 10:00 and 14:00, with guides in English and Japanese.

Riders must be 14 or older, so it is not an option for younger children. The meeting point, price and cancellation terms are set by the operator and change, so please read the current tour page before booking.

Who Is This For?

Families with a child who is about to leave the training wheels behind, and anyone who cannot walk past a black steam locomotive without stopping.

One lap of a small course with real traffic lights, and a look at the locomotive on the way out. It is a modest half hour. But the day a child learns to ride a bicycle tends to stay with everyone who was there.

Note: Opening hours, closing days and the loan conditions are set by the ward and can change. Please check the official page before visiting, follow the instructions of the staff, and give way to the children who are practising.

Affiliate note: This article contains a Klook affiliate link. As an affiliate, we may earn from qualifying purchases at no extra cost to you.