🧭 Travel Tips & Honne👍 666Arashiyama Crowds: Locals Blame the Cars, Not the Tourists — “Ban Everything but Residents and Buses”
Arashiyama's main street is so jammed that a news crew filmed pedestrians squeezing past illegally stopped cars — and a driver snapping “shut up” at the reporter. But in the 2,200-plus comments, Kyoto locals aim their anger somewhere specific, and it isn't the visitors. The most-liked fix (666 likes) is blunt: ban every vehicle except residents' cars and buses — seconded at 626 and 417 likes. A local resident says badly behaved taxis are the biggest jam-maker (92 likes), and another commenter puts the blame squarely on the city: this is Kyoto failing to regulate traffic, not a tourist problem — and with no police directing this crush, it's dangerous (25 likes). The line that stings most: “a city that's been raising the same problem for decades and never solves it” (310 likes). For a visitor, the locals' consensus doubles as practical advice: treat Arashiyama as a place you arrive at by train and walk.
