Photo/Illutration A message posted on a chair is seen on Dec. 1 in Tokyo’s Shibuya Ward. (Shingo Tsuru)

A pleading note posted on a chair at a bus stop in central Tokyo drew words of sympathy on social media but also criticism about legal violations.

The note read: “Please allow this 80-year-old passenger to use this while waiting for buses.”

The chair had been placed beside the Tokyo metropolitan government’s Shibuya 2-chome bus stop on National Road No. 246, or Aoyama-dori street, in Shibuya Ward.

The area is 400 meters northeast of JR Shibuya Station and close to Aoyama Gakuin University and the United Nations University.

However, nearby restaurant employees and bus users say the stop is not very popular, although some elderly passengers consistently board buses there at certain times of the week.

The note argues that a bench is available “in front of Aoyama Gakuin University but there is none at the 2-chome stop.”

It is not known who placed the chair there for bus passengers to use. Old passengers reportedly started resting on the seat or putting luggage on it.

The transport ministry’s national road office, which is responsible for the street, put a red warning sign against the chair on Nov. 12 last year during a regular joint patrol with residents.

The sign said the chair was “illegally occupying a road” and ordered its owner to “retrieve it as soon as possible.”

Under road-related legislation, placing objects, such as furniture, on streets without permission is prohibited because they can be blown away in winds, according to the transport ministry.

Road operators often remove these objects. Their owners are also pressed to take them away.

The chair in Shibuya became an issue on the internet, when a Twitter user uploaded a photo of the note and the warning from authorities.

“I came close to the chair because I thought it was discarded, but, surprisingly, found a note with an 80-year-old woman’s earnest wish,” the tweeter wrote.

The post received more than 10,000 retweets and over 48,000 “likes.”

Replies were both negative and supportive.

Some opposed the seat removal order and wanted the old passenger to “get the green light to continue using” the chair. Others backed the authorities by describing the chair “as illegal for any reason.”

Why didn’t the bus operator introduce a bench? 

The Tokyo Metropolitan Bureau of Transportation makes seating available at 1,000, or less than 30 percent, of the 3,800 bus stops along the metropolitan government-run routes.

Officials said it was difficult to install a bench at the Shibuya 2-chome bus stop because it is located above a basement that supports a traffic information board.

In addition, they said the bureau did not receive requests for seating there.

Asahi Shimbun reporters repeatedly visited the site to find the person who put the message on the chair. But they could not locate the individual. They also visited nearby residents over about a week, but they did not know the identity of the note writer nor who placed the chair there.

Five months later, in early April, a reporter found a change at the bus stop: a small, new bench had been set up.

The national road office and the Tokyo Metropolitan Bureau of Transportation said the two-seater bench was installed on Feb. 4 by the Tokyo government for waiting passengers.

Officials from the office and the bureau said they had quickly sent personnel to the scene when they learned about the online controversy.

After discussions to “respond to the note writer’s wish as much as possible,” they said they concluded that a smaller bench could be introduced there.

The illegal chair was removed by the national road office two weeks after the bench was installed. A new warning urged the owner to recover the chair, but no other messages have since appeared.

The identity of the note writer remains a mystery. But a Tokyo metropolitan government official said it does not matter.

“There’s no doubt that the bench will be used by elderly passengers,” the official said. “We are happy if they are pleased with it.”

(This article was written by Eishi Kado and Shingo Tsuru.)

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