Earlier quoted context omitted.
I suspect that culturally for Americans to embrace trains, you probably need segregation; a free class and a ticketed class with a bouncer.
i mean the Shinkansen has two classes as well :)
three, now!
The secrets of the Shinkansen
121–130 of 159 posts
Re: The secrets of the Shinkansen
#122Earlier quoted context omitted.
In every EU country the infrastructure company (companies) is separate from companies that operate trains, with some usually small exceptions.
Well, to be honest, the results in Japan and China, where that isn’t the case, have turned out to be much better.
The interesting thing is how the EU railway policy just keeps plowing ahead trying to impose the "vertical separation" approach in the EU, despite the disastrous results from the UK experience (and some EU countries to a somewhat lesser extent, so far the UK seems to be the only example of going all-in on that approach).
Re: The secrets of the Shinkansen
#123Earlier quoted context omitted.
Ah! But is your bicycle registered and do you have insurance. (I agree with the trains. I love the trains.)
People insure bikes?
At my native home my bicycles are insured, now through my home insurance (part of the furniture, kind of), but at one point one of my electric bicycles was too expensive for that and required additional insurance. As soon as the price dropped a bit I could drop that extra insurance.
As the comment above said, in Japan a bicycle is registered to a person when you buy it. Even the second hand bikes from recycle shops. And there _is_ a theft problem.. but not everywhere. I sometimes don't bother with locking my bicycle outside the shopping mall, here (in my town in Japan). Nobody steals bicycles here. There was a time when a particular gang of teenagers would steal scooters though.. the 50cc ones. A friend's scooter was stolen. The police found the culprits and he got his scooter back. But not much problems with bicycles. Unlike in my town back home. Now that I'm here I would not be surprised if, when I go back, I find that someone broke into my garage and stole the bicycles.
Re: The secrets of the Shinkansen
#124Earlier quoted context omitted.
I believe the Japanese private rail companies also own the lines where their traffic is. This would explain a lot. There are other countries (including my native one) where the trains are run by one company and the lines are owned by another. This does.not.work. For what seems like obvious reasons. There's no economic gain for the owner of the infrastructure to spend money, quite the opposite in fact.
In every EU country the infrastructure company (companies) is separate from companies that operate trains, with some usually small exceptions.
Most EU countries have adopted the approach of putting the infrastructure company and the public train company under the same holding company, which is sort-of the minimum that EU regulations demand. In practice, in many countries the previous national rail company (under whatever conglomerate structure it may be operating under today) is fiercely protective of its own turf and tries to prevent new entrants, and digging their heels in implementing EU railway competition regulations. So complying with the letter of the law, but does everything in its powers to not comply with the spirit.
Then again, given the UK experience of going all-in on the "vertical separation" and privatization path, perhaps one shouldn't blame them.
Re: The secrets of the Shinkansen
#125Earlier quoted context omitted.
> The density of the NE is nothing like what you see elsewhere in the world, especially Asia, and Japan and China specifically. Yeah, I defy anyone who claims the US can't build trains "because of density" to fly to Tokyo, and actually take the Seibu Shinjuku line west from Shinjuku station. Look at those buildings built right next to the tracks , for many, many kilometers. People live in those -- if the windows open…
The U.S. can build trains and has a good rail system—for freight not passengers. It’s not obvious how Japan moves freight, but the U.S.’s rail system evolved to move freight efficiently. That is a huge difference and not necessarily the result of corruption or incompetence.
Maybe. Japan has plenty of freight by rail, but you can’t look at (say) the California high-speed rail debacle and blame that on cargo.
Re: The secrets of the Shinkansen
#126The article correctly identifies positive externalities of railways:
> The railway can capture the value it creates for me by charging me a fare, but it cannot capture the value it creates for those at my destination. As transport infrastructure creates benefits that produce no revenue for providers, free markets rarely build enough of it.
…but then very confusingly argues that railways should be profitable, including on per-passenger basis. A profitable transport system with positive externalities is inevitably either too expensive or under-investing (or maybe both) with respect to maximising the total economic productivity. Ancillary monopolies in real estate and retail might offset that somewhat, but only to an extent.
Similarly, I don't understand why the article speaks positively of the closure of 83 "loss-making lines". The lines being loss-making for the rail company doesn't mean they aren't improving total productivity, as the very same article argues!
Further, they mention the over-crowding in Tokyo later on
> Tokyo’s infamously crammed trains are a symptom of underpriced rush hour traffic
…but somehow blame it on the price being too low, and not under-investment into more capacity by the commercial companies! People commuting less because they can't afford it would be bad for the businesses on the other side of their commute!
I suppose this is the centre-right ideological slant of Works in Progress showing, which is a bit of a shame when it leads to those self-contradictions in the usually quite rigorous publication.
Re: The secrets of the Shinkansen
#127Earlier quoted context omitted.
People insure bikes?
They are easy to steal and can cost multiple thousands of dollars.
Though even if you're getting an hybrid assist bike, if you're paying much more than 1500$ for a commuter, probably overpaying [1200 from the manufacturer]
https://www.aventon.com/products/soltera-2-5-ebike?variant=4...
Re: The secrets of the Shinkansen
#128It’s fascinating to read but I have a hard time imagining a public western railway provider could evolve into a train based mega corporation doing real estate and health services.
We had just that in the UK relatively recently! https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Metro-landhttps://en.wikipedia...
Re: The secrets of the Shinkansen
#129Earlier quoted context omitted.
> The density of the NE is nothing like what you see elsewhere in the world, especially Asia, and Japan and China specifically. Yeah, I defy anyone who claims the US can't build trains "because of density" to fly to Tokyo, and actually take the Seibu Shinjuku line west from Shinjuku station. Look at those buildings built right next to the tracks , for many, many kilometers. People live in those -- if the windows open…
The U.S. can build trains and has a good rail system—for freight not passengers. It’s not obvious how Japan moves freight, but the U.S.’s rail system evolved to move freight efficiently. That is a huge difference and not necessarily the result of corruption or incompetence.
My understanding the rail share of freight is relatively low in Japan compared to many other developed countries. Most freight moves by truck or coastal shipping. Looking at a map of Japan, most of the cities are by the coast, so I guess coastal shipping makes a lot of sense.
Re: The secrets of the Shinkansen
#130Earlier quoted context omitted.
> Also, is not the population density fairly high? There's not as much land to spread in low-density car centric suburbs like there is in (say) the US. LOL no. Outside of the big neighborhoods of the big cities, Japan is endless urban sprawl. I know because I live in a small Japanese city of 40k people and it's just detached houses, small 2-story apartment buildings, a big box stores. Public transportation is almost…
> LOL no. Outside of the big neighborhoods of the big cities, Japan is endless urban sprawl. And how many people live in those areas? * https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Demographics_of_Japan#Urban_di... * https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Population_weighted_density Half the population lives in Tokyo (40M), Osaka (19M), and Nagoya (10M); one-third in the Greater Tokyo Area. * https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Mg5XHN_25HQ&t=7m…
Yeah, I know that half the population lives in either the Greater Tokyo Area or the Keihanshin area. But you still have the other half scattered all around the country.
And even within those areas, when you move to the outskirts it is not so dense. Take the train from Narita to central Tokyo and tell me what you see.