Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Why Japan has such good railways

worksinprogress.co

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

51–60 of 609 posts

Re: Why Japan has such good railways

#51

Post by kiba »

dgellow wrote: post #5
amazingamazing wrote: post #3

the railways are excellent, but it's funny. I was just in Kyoto and saw flyers seemingly at every single temple opposing the Hokuriku Shinkansen extension. apparently this type of opposition has always existed (I looked at the history of trains in Japan and originally most Japanese did NOT want it at all because they thought it looked really ugly), like nimbys in USA, but such decisions are apparently federalized acc…

I’m not American, so only have an outsider perspective, but I’m not convinced that’s possible in the US to do the same, because the country has a completely different perspective on individual rights. Land ownership seems to be seen as something sacred that cannot be infringed in any way, meaning a small group of people who own some parts of the land can block any development that would benefit the public at large

The US is the country that originated Georgism.

Re: Why Japan has such good railways

#52

Post by SeanLuke »

ladberg wrote: post #36
jmull wrote: post #33

I’d think Japan being a long, skinny, population dense country has to help. There’s just more potential in every km of rail laid.

Is that not similar to both the west and east coasts of the US?

It's true to some degree now. But it wasn't very true -- or expected to be true -- back when train lines were being established. That was during westward expansion.

Re: Why Japan has such good railways

#53

Post by yks »

dgellow wrote: post #5
amazingamazing wrote: post #3

the railways are excellent, but it's funny. I was just in Kyoto and saw flyers seemingly at every single temple opposing the Hokuriku Shinkansen extension. apparently this type of opposition has always existed (I looked at the history of trains in Japan and originally most Japanese did NOT want it at all because they thought it looked really ugly), like nimbys in USA, but such decisions are apparently federalized acc…

I’m not American, so only have an outsider perspective, but I’m not convinced that’s possible in the US to do the same, because the country has a completely different perspective on individual rights. Land ownership seems to be seen as something sacred that cannot be infringed in any way, meaning a small group of people who own some parts of the land can block any development that would benefit the public at large

You’d think so, but in fact it’s almost the opposite! You can own your land all you want but your neighbor has a final say on what’s allowed on your land.

Re: Why Japan has such good railways

#54

Post by skrebbel »

arcticfox wrote: post #38
testing22321 wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> In the US, we have had a pretty wide-open nation, for much of our history. Population density was low, and many folks were forced to be extremely self-sufficient. This has resulted in a fiercely independent national zeitgeist. Australia is much less dense and more remote that the US (I drove 1,050 miles in Australia through the desert without seeing a vehicle or person, in the US you can’t get more than 100 miles f…

I have no strong opinion on the original thesis but your fact doesn't make the point you think it does; you're right that no one lives in most of Australia, nearly everyone is concentrated together on the coast. Australia is a bit more urban than the USA overall from a population perspective, despite being vastly less dense overall due to the areas that no one lives in. So there would be fewer people to carry the cul…

About 9 out of 10 Americans live in cities (incl burbs) and the same holds for Australians. Sure, there's fewer notable population centers in Australia (Sydney, Melbourne, Perth, Adelaide, Brisbane and you got nearly everyone), but there's also just 10x fewer people than in the US so that kind of matches too. I think the picture you link to distorts this, it does not account for the fact that there's simply way fewer Australians.

I'm not convinced that if there were 300m Australians, that they'd still all live in those 5 cities (with every city being 10x bigger). I think there'd be more of them.

Re: Why Japan has such good railways

#55

Post by testing22321 »

ChrisMarshallNY wrote: post #27
testing22321 wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> In the US, we have had a pretty wide-open nation, for much of our history. Population density was low, and many folks were forced to be extremely self-sufficient. This has resulted in a fiercely independent national zeitgeist. Australia is much less dense and more remote that the US (I drove 1,050 miles in Australia through the desert without seeing a vehicle or person, in the US you can’t get more than 100 miles f…

I don’t know. Most Aussies I’ve known are quite independent. I really like them; maybe because we share so many traits. Also, the US was where the British sent their convicts, until we had a big prison riot.

Yes, but Aussies work together for the collective good of society. High taxes. Universal Healthcare. Higher education, etc etc.

Aussies are friendly and kind, not locked in a dog eat dog world.

Re: Why Japan has such good railways

#57

Post by delfinom »

bluefirebrand wrote: post #37
panick21_ wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Funny how people always endlessly worry about water supply, its one of those things that is very easy to claim but very hard to prove an in 99.9% of times there really isn't an issue.

People can live without a high speed train. They cannot live without a clean water supply Seems to me that the priorities are correct

Hard to imagine how a train that has no emissions itself as its catenary powered causes your water supply to be unclean.

Re: Why Japan has such good railways

#58

Post by hollerith »

rwmj wrote: post #43
rayiner wrote: post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The japanese railroads are owned by private companies.

Yes. How would private equity buy them unless they were private companies already?

The point is that Japan has a well-established private-equity industry [1] so the fact that PE firms haven't ruined Japanese railways suggests that PE firms aren't universal corrosive solvents like you seem to want us to believe they are.

[1] https://flippa.com/blog/pe-funds/japan-private-equity-firms/

Re: Why Japan has such good railways

#59

Post by kinow »

SeanLuke wrote: post #46

It's generally regarded that Hong Kong has the best subway in the world. There are many reasons for this, but one cannot be overstated: Hong Kong's geography. A huge portion of the city consists of long thin urban corridors sandwiched between mountains and the sea. As a result, Hong Kong need concentrate its funding on only a few subway lines to support a huge portion of the population. This good article aside, I won…

That is a good point but I think it doesn't apply everywhere.that has a similar shape. New Zealand has a similar shape but without railways interconnecting cities. You cannot cross the country, the islands, or even regions by train.

I think this could be a variable to contribute to a good coverage and infrastructure... but there are probably more factors involved.

Re: Why Japan has such good railways

#60

Post by mvvl »

one thing worth pointing out is that the legacy private railways work because they were never nationalized and had decades to quietly buy up land around stations before it was worth anything. That's really hard to replicate from scratch. This model is great in dense cities but even Japan is still struggling with rural lines
Post reply on HN