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

271–280 of 609 posts

Re: Why Japan has such good railways

#271

Post by keybored »

ipdashc wrote: post #202
CharlieDigital wrote: post #191

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> We’d have to give our kids independence to take the train themselves, instead of spending every saturday driving them around to 3 different far flung activities. The shock! The horror! > The idea of just accepting whatever brand of hamburger buns they have at the store... How could a family possibly survive! Imagine having to eat a different brand of hamburger buns ! Truly, America is a shining beacon of modernity…

Maybe you misinterpreted the post you replied to? I don't think they were saying this stuff is a crazy proposal, just that it will be a different way of life for most Americans. No need to be so abrasive.

They were reacting to what was presented and saying that it was foolish. It doesn’t matter if the author presented it as “I am saying this” or “Americans think this”.

Re: Why Japan has such good railways

#272

Post by pibaker »

kdheiwns wrote: post #212
panick21_ wrote: post #112

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Ok but here is the thing, Japan had great civil engineering for 100 years, they have made lots and lots and lots of tunnels. Japan overall has fantastic water quality and is globally known for clean and safe bathrooms. So the argument that 'new train X will destroy the water supply' really needs to be based on a whole stack of good evidence.

Japan has some of the most horrific pollution disasters of the 20th century and had tremendously polluted water. The clean Japan thing is only true because Japan got very serious about safety after companies were ignoring issues and polluting water. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Four_Big_Pollution_Diseases_of... And I don't even get the clean bathrooms connection. Sounds like a random TikTok meme with zero relevance.…

> And I don't even get the clean bathrooms connection

It's simple. If it is Japan, someone will glaze it.

Re: Why Japan has such good railways

#273

Post by cmatza »

zhdc1 wrote: post #259
cmatza wrote: post #242

Earlier quoted context omitted.

OP addresses that. Japan is not particularly dense, especially outside of core downtowns. You see the same dynamics in London and Paris. People do not "prefer to live in dense urban environments" by urbanist standards. They prefer to live in dense urban environments by North American standards, which can still be far less dense than urbanists really want.

> which can still be far less dense than urbanists really want. And this was my comparison?

May be an assumption on my part, but the language "people prefer to live in dense urban environment" is typical of urbanism-boosters - who definitely push a lot online that leads one to believe that anything less than inner Tokyo is unacceptable.

Re: Why Japan has such good railways

#274

Post by pibaker »

drunner wrote: post #39
rwmj wrote: post #31

In the West some private equity company would be buying these up, selling off the land and separate businesses, and screwing the rail passengers for all they can, until the whole thing sinks in a sea of debt. Then repeating the formula.

Japan railways are mostly (all?) privately owned.

JR was only privatized in 1987 after the previous state owned railway company borrowed too much to fund its infrastructure projects like high speed rails.

Re: Why Japan has such good railways

#275

Post by [deleted] »

mvvl wrote: post #60

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

[deleted]

Re: Why Japan has such good railways

#276

Post by strado »

mvvl wrote: post #60

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

Exactly this. And the European case is the opposite starting point. Paris already had 2+ million people when the Metro opened in 1900. You're not building rail to create land value, you're building it because the existing density already demands it. Which is why European systems basically all require public subsidy while the Japanese private lines could turn a profit. The preconditions are just so different that copying either model somewhere else rarely works. IME the people pushing "just do what Tokyo does" tend to skip over this part.

Re: Why Japan has such good railways

#277

Post by jccx70 »

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…

[dead]

Re: Why Japan has such good railways

#278

Post by strado »

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…

[dead]

Re: Why Japan has such good railways

#279

Post by testing22321 »

panick21_ wrote: post #32
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…

Australia also has many issues the US had. Car dependence. They also don't have high speed rail despite their cities being near perfect for it. Also in Australia the waste majority of the population arrived much later and most were always attached to coastal cities. These cities were dominated by British aristocrat early on and later the British labor movement and reflects the culture of London. Australia politically…

Australia has higher taxes, universal healthcare, higher education, etc etc.

Aussies work together, not against each other

Re: Why Japan has such good railways

#280

Post by testing22321 »

SoftTalker wrote: post #190
testing22321 wrote: post #55

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

The USA was founded in rebellion against high taxes and heavy-handed central government. That is still an essential component of our philosophy.

Agree. Which is why I

, at the top of this comment chain, that it can’t work in the US because people don’t work together.

Post reply on HN