Holidays to be moved to ease traffic for 2020 Tokyo Olympics

Thoughtfully, Bon will be between the Olympics and Paralympics, so we hopefully won't need to reschedule the spirits' return.

This is an asinine knee jerk, money wasting, ignorant response to a real problem.

Just make the pertinent days one-off holidays, and quit screwing with everything else!

Thoughtfully, Bon will be between the Olympics and Paralympics, so we hopefully won't need to reschedule the spirits' return.

There are actually 3 different "OBon" in Japan, and fortunately all three will not coincide with the Olympic activities!

Don't want to p'o the spirits too much!

So the whole country gets screwed out of its regular holidays just to make things easier for the Tokyo Olympic organizers! Thanks. I agree with Yubaru, just make them one time holidays, and let the rest of the country go about it's regular routine.

This kind of makes sense, but it’s only for a couple of days during the opening ceremony. The rest of the event is going to be a transport nightmare both for commuters and tourists. I’m so glad I’ve planned to be out of Tokyo for the whole Olympics.

Meanwhile, the Diet also enacted Japan's first law to prevent doping. The law allows the sports minister to request customs and immigration authorities as well as police to provide athletes' personal information as part of efforts to detect illicit practices by Olympic and Paralympic athletes coming to the country.

So, the police will be spying on the foreign athletes and giving the information to the Sports Ministry? And will they also be spying on the Japanese athletes?

This is an asinine knee jerk, money wasting, ignorant response to a real problem.Just make the pertinent days one-off holidays, and quit screwing with everything else!

Please sir, can I have some bread with my circus?

This doesn't make sense! I will let go of the 3rd Monday of July (although the kids could have use a day off from school) but the one from October where the only holiday as the same as US so my kids and myself can get a day off and that is being screwed!

Do the spirits know it's the Olympics? So Obon It a changeable date just have to tell the spirits not to expect acknowledgement that year.There not going to be happy.

I'm not happy about losing the October holiday, that is one of the few holidays with lots of events scheduled, because it's during that small but welcome window of perfect weather in Autumn (one of the four seasons in Japan, in case you didn't know Japan has that many). Just make a new holiday already!

Hustle, my kid's summer vacation doesn't begin until July 26th this year.

As if further proof were required, Tokyo's needs take precedence over the nation's.

Damn the LDP moves fast when it has to.

How about changing other 150 year old laws, and making things better for people...oh never mind.

So the whole country gets screwed out of its regular holidays just to make things easier for the Tokyo Olympic organizers! Thanks. I agree with Yubaru, just make them one time holidays, and let the rest of the country go about it's regular routine.

exactly. stupid stupid decision from the organizers of this event. Pretty much in line with everything else about the olympics..

why couldn't the damn gov just give them as holidays?? Why are they so damn stingy with people's days off? Stupid. But that's EXACTLY what you get from the LDP.

So instead of adjusting the law which I think requires more effort and trouble, why didnt they think about this before the event and move the bloody olympics later, to a cooler month even. Seriously, not a single braincell over there.

Maria makes a good point about the autumn holiday and how nice it is at that time of year.

fwiw, moving the holidays means Thurs to Sun off at the start and Sat to Monday off at the end, a four and a three day break. They wont be busy like normal times, so maybe a good time for ordinary folks to ignore the whole charade go to the mountains or go camping.

This is an asinine knee jerk, money wasting, ignorant response to a real problem

obviously this is not a knee-jerk reaction:

an immediate unthinking emotional reaction produced by an event or statement to which the reacting person is highly sensitive; - in persons with strong feelings on a topic, it may be very predictable.

this was a long planned out response to a problem. how this wastes money in your opinion is anyone's guess.

The 1964 Tokyo Summer Olympics was held in October. That was a good idea. The Olympics should have been scheduled to start on Sports Day in October, which would have been symbolic. I image in an August Olympics, lots of athletes will get heat stroke, or this will play to the advantage of athletes from hot countries.

Excellent news! I can hardly wait for Olympic! It will be a chance to promote Japan to the world, show how hi-tech Japan is, and boost tourism even more. It will be one giant street party all over Japan for 3 weeks, dat and night, and all people are invited!

Just make the pertinent days one-off holidays, and quit screwing with everything else!

Completely with @yubaru on this!!

We love that holiday in October.

Heck, if they really want people to take time off, just create a new holiday, Global Harmony Day. Happy to celebrate that too every year, along with Mountain Day, etc.

@ zichi - I work for Auto components manufacturing company. We will get time iff in Olympic, I cant wait!

The opening ceremony will be in the evening, when the trains are less busy, so there is no need to have a holiday on that day. Also, any congestion caused by the olympics will be limited to a small area of Tokyo. It's not necessary to move national holidays to accommodate that. The salaried drones can alter their routes or working hours, or even take a paid holiday(!) to avoid the crowds. But here the government does the thinking for them.

why not just add holidays instead? Would that blow the mind of a bureaucrat?

Anyone know the specific reason why the Olympics has to be in July-Aug? The hottest and most humid time of the year... Why not schedule it to Sept-Oct?

The Tokyo Olympics in'64 was held in Oct...........

What I want to know is how these holidays are going to affect Japan's coming of age & its young people LOL!!!

Ganbare, enough of the manzai routines eh!

As for the holiday changes, this is just so absurd what they are doing my mind cant make heads or tails of the nonsense!!

Amazing how quick the government acts when it’s about how others will perceive them and about money, but if it’s about people and helpin others (and spending), they need to form panels and take years to decide. Look how long it took for them to agree to the emperor’s retirement, and even longer to enact.

WHY?

Anyone know the specific reason why the Olympics has to be in July-Aug? 

Money. The overseas TV sponsors insisted on it, I think, because they reckon the viewing figures wouldn't be as good in October as in summer.

The Olympics emblem is just made up of currency signs now.

The Lords of the Rings come to Tokyo, and everyone must make way for them.

Nothing can stand in the way of their limousine services, luxury hotel accommodation, food and drinks, their very important sponsors, the Olympic family and of course transportation to the games. Even hotel staff are ordered to smile when they meet with them, according to one of the IOC technical riders. And we can't have any payments to 120,000 volunteers standing in the way of their profits.

Bread and circuses to the max...

I thought Japan wasn't a dictatorship. Maybe I need to revisit English dictionary.

Screw up my holiday calendar so that I can be crushed on public transport to get to white elephant venues and sit or stand in sweltering summer temperatures? No thanks - I will NOT be anywhere near Tokyo when this corrupt farce kicks off.

I thought Japan wasn't a dictatorship. Maybe I need to revisit English dictionary.

Maybe, as it's seems you think moving a holiday would be the determining point on whether a country is a dictatorship or not.

All three completely useless Holidays with no significant meaning to anyone in Japan. Eliminate them and let Japanese workers use the vacation allotted by Labor Standard Laws and let them take a summer break when they want.

I suppose the trains will be packed with people.... trying to flee the games. That's would be funny

this was a long planned out response to a problem. how this wastes money in your opinion is anyone's guess.

How this wastes money you ask? Consider the amount of time and typical endless meetings that were held to come to this conclusion? THAT's taxpayers money being used by politicians, they don't care, it's not coming out of their pockets.

Next this is pretty much Tokyo's problem, so why does the rest of this entire country have to lose their regularly scheduled holidays to "support" Tokyo?

Calendars will need to be adjusted, schedule books, everything associated with "dates". Let's not forget the endless meetings that will occur in businesses on how to have their employees work around these days.

There is a crap load more, but the point is the national diet does not need to be screwing with everyone's lives because of the Olympics and THAT is a waste of everyone's tax money here!

Joe YanToday  10:53 am JST

Anyone know the specific reason why the Olympics has to be in July-Aug? The hottest and most humid time of the year... Why not schedule it to Sept-Oct?

The Tokyo Olympics in'64 was held in Oct...........

Yeah. World Series is in October. Nothing else on the calendar and they don't want a repeat of '64 when the World Series was from October 5th to 15th and the Olympics from the 11th to the 23rd. Not like there should be people upset about the overlap, but there we are. Business doesn't want competition for humans, only the bottom line matters. Just like the Olympics today, not the '64. Sad.

No one had the backbone to stand up to the IOC.

Corporation algo's told the humaans to keep printing money . Oh wait, that's 2024

"Ease Traffic ..... ?"

When they say "to alleviate traffic congestion" what they really mean is "to comply with IOC's requirements for the Olympics and Paralympics".

The Olympics require dedicated highway lanes, for Olympic officials and athletes only, between the various official venues, the Olympic Village and other facilities. Since Tokyo's Expressway system includes many junctions where several lanes all merge into one lane, and since Tokyo has not made any effort, in the five years since being awarded the Olympics, to reconfigure the Expressways, the only solution is to close down the entire Expressway system to ordinary traffic.

The dedicated highway lanes are of course required for the entire duration of the Olympics and Paralympics, not just the opening and closing ceremonies, so we can expect more "traffic congestion alleviation measures" to come, not just three national holidays.