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Why Japan has such good railways

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Re: Why Japan has such good railways

#171

Post by kavok »

CharlieDigital wrote: post #163
kccqzy wrote: post #142

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Certainly, part of it is also cultural and legal frameworks that in the US make it very hard for this model to work How so? In the United States Congress granted land to railroad companies, and the companies can sell the land to finance building tracks. Many cities started as railroad stops and grew because of the railroad.

A lot of NIMBY/racism/classism and modern reality of legal delays means that it can be costly. Zoning laws is another. It's a lot of fun visiting Japan and Taiwan because you can wander around and there's a huge variation of utilization in a given block. US approach to zoning means that I rarely see similar utilization in the US. Separate from this is politics. I'm in the NYC metro area and we've been trying to expan…

NIMBY seems to have a hard time stopping data centers. Why do they have more success stopping renewables and rail?

Re: Why Japan has such good railways

#172

Post by mmooss »

antonymoose wrote: post #161
Someone1234 wrote: post #115

Earlier quoted context omitted.

American's culture of me, me, me, now, now, now is why. If it doesn't benefit the individual almost immediately they're strongly opposed. They want the benefits of strong infrastructure but let someone else build it without inconveniencing ME or costing ME a dime. It is a culture that teaches greed is good and society should be built around all gain no cost.

As an American, I always hear all these weird stories about New York and its subway system. All the random busker type nonsense, the petty crime and the “mugger wallet” type jokes. Not to mention the major crimes that make the news. I’d rather not deal with it? Yes I know roads are dangerous. I’d still rather not deal with the expected culturally imposed insanity that the Japanese curiously seem to lack.

> I always hear all these weird stories

The weird stories, about anything, are nonsense; sensationalized to either be emotoinally compelling or even active disinformation to serve some political end (especially about American cities, especially about NYC.)

It's just induced fear. Just go to NY and ride the subway. Millions do all the time without any problems, without a second thought. It's really no problem and amazingly convenient. (Busking is people playing music.)

Of course some crime occurs among millions of people but so do lottery grand prizes and heart attacks. I've been on many subway rides without experiencing one crime or even seeing one, and much other public transit.

And when you do, you'll know what to think of the stories and people who tell them.

Re: Why Japan has such good railways

#173

Post by [deleted] »

kohsuke wrote: post #109
fsh wrote: post #97

Japanese public transport is good, but no match for the Swiss system. Outside of big cities, the coverage is spotty, and even reasonably large towns are only connected by reserved-only trains every couple of hours that get booked out days in advance. The almost complete lack of digitization is also remarkable (reservations have to be made with machines in the stations). There are other annoyances such as the public t…

You can make reservations online: https://www.eki-net.com/en/jreast-train-reservation/Top/Inde...

[deleted]

Re: Why Japan has such good railways

#174

Post by vantassell »

> Japan is one of the only countries to have privatized parking. In Europe and North America, vast quantities of parking space is socialized: municipalities own the streets and allow people to park on them at low or zero cost. Initially with the intention of encouraging the provision of more parking spaces, Japan made it illegal to park on public roads or pavements without special permission. Before someone buys a car, they must prove that they have a reserved night-time space on private land, either owned or leased.

This is got to be a huge factor. Making everyone pay for "free parking" through inefficient use of space is such a waste. I strongly recommend everyone to read Donald Shoup's "The High Price of Free Parking".

Re: Why Japan has such good railways

#175

Post by zhdc1 »

socalgal2 wrote: post #152
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’s arguably irrelevant to anything except the Shinkansen. Switzerland has 8m people. Bay Area has 8m people. Switzerland is 1/4th as densely populated as the Bay Area (4x the size) yet they have 10x better transportation

The Swiss public transport system is a century-plus old at this point. Compare pictures of the Zurich tram system in the early 20th century with today - squint your eyes and you won't notice any difference.

That said, I'm willing to bet that San Fransisco and the surrounding communities had comparable public transportation in the 19th and early 20th century. While I can't speak for the bay area, you can still find exposed tram tracks in many US cities - Philadelphia, for instance.

The US's move from having the best to arguably the worst public transportation system in the world among developed countries is a lesson in disastrous government policy.

Re: Why Japan has such good railways

#176

Post by dgellow »

nottorp wrote: post #104
savanaly wrote: post #78

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>how ingenious Japan’s system of zoning is I'm only barely familiar with it so I ask this in good faith: is it really ingenious or is it just more permissive? My bias/priors are that the simpler and truer statement is: it can't be overstated how beneficial more permissive zoning laws are to a society.

From what I remember, Japanese zoning allows small shops (there's a size limit) in any residential zone. That means no car trips when you run out of bread or milk. Smartest property of that zoning system IMO.

Fwiw that’s what we have in Germany, unless you live in remote places. You always have a Lidl, Aldi, or REWE you can walk or bike to.

No idea what our local zoning laws are

Re: Why Japan has such good railways

#177

Post by Avicebron »

kavok wrote: post #171
CharlieDigital wrote: post #163

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A lot of NIMBY/racism/classism and modern reality of legal delays means that it can be costly. Zoning laws is another. It's a lot of fun visiting Japan and Taiwan because you can wander around and there's a huge variation of utilization in a given block. US approach to zoning means that I rarely see similar utilization in the US. Separate from this is politics. I'm in the NYC metro area and we've been trying to expan…

NIMBY seems to have a hard time stopping data centers. Why do they have more success stopping renewables and rail?

If we put the same amount of economic pressure on rail that data centers have...the US would have probably have almost as nice infrastructure as China and be significantly better off.

Re: Why Japan has such good railways

#178

Post by CharlieDigital »

kavok wrote: post #171
CharlieDigital wrote: post #163

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A lot of NIMBY/racism/classism and modern reality of legal delays means that it can be costly. Zoning laws is another. It's a lot of fun visiting Japan and Taiwan because you can wander around and there's a huge variation of utilization in a given block. US approach to zoning means that I rarely see similar utilization in the US. Separate from this is politics. I'm in the NYC metro area and we've been trying to expan…

NIMBY seems to have a hard time stopping data centers. Why do they have more success stopping renewables and rail?

NIMBY is stopping data centers.

Maine set to become first state with data center ban: https://www.cnbc.com/2026/04/09/maine-data-center-ban.html

Also, it's a different kind of more insidious and visceral NIMBY rooted in racism and classism.

Re: Why Japan has such good railways

#179

Post by SoftTalker »

kemiller wrote: post #79

This is a great article, but I think it’s hard to ignore that Japan’s culture of harmony is a big part of why they were able to choose sensible regulations that benefitted everyone. We struggle to pass even the most sensible land use reforms because entrenched interests want to remain entrenched even if it hurts the system overall.

It's also hard to ignore that Japan was bombed to smithereens in the 1940s and undertook a nationwide rebuilding effort that might have contributed to a more uniform approach to land use.

Re: Why Japan has such good railways

#180

Post by leonidasrup »

renewiltord wrote: post #143
andrewl wrote: post #72

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The population density is probably one factor. New Zealand has 5.34 million people in 103,000 square miles. At the other extreme you have Hong Kong with 7.5 million people in 430 square miles. Each mile of track gives service to a much larger percentage of the population in Hong Kong than New Zealand. The same goes for a lot of the United States. The coastal corridors in the United States are population dense, but th…

Population density is not accidental. HK has towers and greenery vs Anglophone culture which is to build homes sprawled into the greenery.

The US urban sprawl in 50s, 60s was not cultural and not by accident but planed part of civil defense.

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47815910

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