Why Japan has such good railways • Hacker News Board

Re: Why Japan has such good railways

#221

Post by chmod775 » Sat, Apr 18, 2026, 5:56 PM UTC

dgellow wrote: post #176

nottorp wrote: post #104

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

Not really the same thing. They're much larger already than most stores you'd see in urban Japan.

Think more in terms of small convenience stores ("Spätis" with daily necessities) everywhere. Typical distance to a store is maybe 500-1000m in Germany. In dense areas of Japanese cities it's closer to one store every 100m-200m.

So in Germany it'd be a 10 minute walk, while in Japan most of your "walk" would be getting downstairs.

The flipside of that is that selection is going to be limited compared to what you'd find in Germany.

Re: Why Japan has such good railways

#222

Post by kevin_thibedeau » Sat, Apr 18, 2026, 6:01 PM UTC

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…

There's an existing disused commuter rail line in NJ near the Hudson that was shut down in the 60s. It still has many of its stations and density to support rail service today but can't be reopened because of the NIMBYs. If they can't make that work, the rest of the country is mostly hopeless.

Re: Why Japan has such good railways

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Post by ghaff » Sat, Apr 18, 2026, 6:02 PM UTC

kjkjadksj wrote: post #192

dgellow wrote: post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

Eminent domain is designed for this. People are compelled to sell.

And you'd better be prepared to fight for it through the courts. Might take a decade or more if someone is really opposed to selling.

Re: Why Japan has such good railways

#224

Post by ericmay » Sat, Apr 18, 2026, 6:02 PM UTC

vantassell wrote: post #174

> 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 ca…

The main low-hanging fruit is just removing surface parking lots in American downtowns and stopping the development and expansion of highways through the same. If you did nothing else that would have a significant positive impact. For almost all communities those surface parking lots are economic extracts from the community. They're woefully underpriced for tax purposes too.

Re: Why Japan has such good railways

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Post by kjs3 » Sat, Apr 18, 2026, 6:04 PM UTC

panick21_ wrote: post #188

mmooss wrote: post #183

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The burden of proof should be on not contaminating the water supply. That is too dangerous to risk. > Japan had great civil engineering for 100 years, they have made lots and lots and lots of tunnels. Japan overall has fantastic water quality ... Does it? And if so, maybe that's because they make sure projects like this one don't contaminate the water supply. > ... globally known for clean and safe bathrooms What doe…

Maybe if the only person that thinks that the water supply is being destroyed is a local politician with a massive axe to grind who is trying to extort a local stop, then maybe we should question that over the engineers who have built tunnels their whole lives. This is specially true when these tunnel goes along many different areas and seemingly the only that complains and believes is unsafe is also the one that is…

At one point to you personally consider the source of a claim?

You like to throw around assertions like "99.9% of times there really isn't an issue" with absolutely zero proof, but have a big problem with someone saying "I don't agree". I don't think you understand what sources, claims and truth actually mean.

Re: Why Japan has such good railways

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Post by mjevans » Sat, Apr 18, 2026, 6:09 PM UTC

Schiendelman wrote: post #208

mjevans wrote: post #125

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is my major problem as a renter in the US. The minimum code really is too minimum. The city ordinances also enforce high limits on walls in ways that preserve a baby boomer childhood era view of suburbs. It'd suck less if it felt like E.G. noise and environmental pollution ordinances were ever enforced. (Break up those parties and stop people from doing trash burns / crappy fires during burn bans which are prett…

If we relaxed our zoning, your low quality apartment would be much cheaper, and you would be able to afford something better.

I do strongly agree about specific kinds of relaxing.

  * Clear and concise approvals process
  * No more NIMBY BS
  * Impact based assessment (similar to Japans)
  * Possibly goals to encourage desired types of use (but not hard LIMIT beyond disallowed!)

While at the same time, the quality of built items should be increased. That is the minimum code should reflect a value that produces a good quality of life for those in the buildings at a reasonable expenditure of resources over the lifetime of the building.

Re: Why Japan has such good railways

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Post by kevin_thibedeau » Sat, Apr 18, 2026, 6:09 PM UTC

rayiner wrote: post #166

Freedom2 wrote: post #153

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I sometimes see the US referred to as a "post-rail" society, meaning that it has outgrown the need for rail for the more intimate, personal transportation methods we see today. I submit that, like other HN commenters say, the US doesn't need rail due to this society. How will US citizens help their friends move or do their large (in terms of volume) Costco grocery shopping without large trucks and only using rail?

I’m probably a top 5% train nerd for the U.S. I took trains to work primarily from 2012-2020, in NYC, Philly, Baltimore, and DC. I used to ride Amtrak from Baltimore to DC every morning. I love Tokyo’s train system. I go there every year and I always take the train. But when I went there with my wife and three kids, I took a lot of Ubers! You can’t fit our double stroller with big America bags of toys and snacks on a…

I lived for many years next to a train station in NJ. I could readily take the train in to Manhattan, but for the hours I'd be there in evenings and on weekends, it was much more convenient and faster to drive in. My town was far enough out that the cost was slightly cheaper to drive (before the congestion fee). I then had the freedom to leave at any time without concern for the schedule.

Re: Why Japan has such good railways

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Post by ColonelBlimp » Sat, Apr 18, 2026, 6:09 PM UTC

seu wrote: post #158

The article is great and very informative. But I feel there's a general vibe of "privatizations are great". For example, they do mention that privatizations didn't work in Argentina (they were a total mess and the total railway went from something like 50k kilometers to two thirds of that - if) but they don't mention enough of it - or other cases - to understand which regulations and why worked the way they did. It f…

I'm not surprised that the article has that vibe and that you noticed it. Works in Progress, the magazine that published the article, is notorious for having a preference for market-oriented solutions, "laissez faire" policies and neoliberalism. They are open about it. Nothing wrong with that, of course.

Re: Why Japan has such good railways

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Post by swed420 » Sat, Apr 18, 2026, 6:19 PM UTC

dudul wrote: post #156

swed420 wrote: post #118

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> because entrenched interests want to remain entrenched even if it hurts the system overall. You might say it's because we live in a "low trust society," but not for the reasons the people who usually invoke that term claim.

What are the reasons people usually invoke? And what are the "true reasons"?

Most people using the term "low trust society" are implying that certain subsets of the population are the cause of it, often with racial (non-white) and/or economic (lower class) components, whereas somebody like me views those groups and their behaviors, to the extent that it's true, as a symptom of the low trust society rather than the root cause. For me, the root cause is systemic corruption all the way to the top, for decade after decade.

Re: Why Japan has such good railways

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Post by YmiYugy » Sat, Apr 18, 2026, 6:19 PM UTC

justanotherjoe wrote: post #167

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…

It's worth mentioning that swiss is a nation of 9 million, whereas Japan has 128 million people. I'm not sure how comparable it is. You probably don't need to pass through a lot of settlements for any public projects in swiss, for example.

I think it's more politics and economics. Switzerland is quite a lot richer than Japan and is extremely decentralized politically. That creates strong incentives to provide good public services even to mountain villages. It also helps that Switzerland isn't experiencing population decline. The Swiss population as a whole is growing quite rapidly and from what limited data I could find even rural regions are growing. I think land acquisition doesn't really play a huge role. They are both mountainous countries where rail projects have to squeeze in valleys or bear the expense of tunnelling.