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

311–320 of 609 posts

Re: Why Japan has such good railways

#311

Post by bradchris »

tokioyoyo wrote: post #297
jltsiren wrote: post #250

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The cost of passenger rail is high in America, because America doesn't build enough rail. If you try building a single megaproject, nobody knows what they are doing, everything is inefficient, and mistakes will be made. But you learn by doing. If the individual projects are small enough that there are always multiple projects in various stages, you develop and maintain expertise. Then you can build things cost-effect…

I think it's not feasible in America because of the culture. If you have a good chunk of people that are hell-bent against sharing space with others for one reason or another (some are legitimate reasons!), you're already discarding a significant chunk of passengers. Another hot take is... if you want any of the infrastructure to be mass-used, you have to make it better than the alternatives, so people with the means…

Yes, but with caveats.

Culturally, though, it’s because that over half of the population doesn’t know that they would benefit from trains? In the same way outside (just as inside) the US there’s an age-old divide between farmers and city folk (see Denmark or France for the most recent protests).

In China, >66% of the population lives in urban areas. In the US, The issue is not that those areas that would benefit the most don’t support it, it’s that the areas that would benefit the most from it are surrounded by areas that currently have no viable alternatives (and thus knowledge that something else is possible) other than a car. They’re already driving >1hr to get to work or an airport. Therefore, of course they think anything that takes away resources from wider roads is a waste of their own time and tax money, as it does not benefit them.

The reason the California HSR, if ever finished, will actually mark a cultural shift is that it’s the only megaproject attempted since the 21st century that actually puts modern alternatives to the car in rural areas: vast amounts of money could’ve been saved by connecting LA to SF and SD by electrifying and tunneling on the current Amtrak route, but that would’ve left out about half the state.

Was it too ambitious? Maybe. But in 50 years, maybe everyone will be talking about how it changed California, and the US’s, entire attitude toward rail.

Re: Why Japan has such good railways

#312

Post by kulahan »

yulker wrote: post #83
ttul wrote: post #75

“Japan’s liberal land use regulation makes it straightforward to build new neighborhoods next to railway lines, giving commuters easy access to city centers. It also enables the densification of these centers, which means that commuters have more places they want to go.” This is the most important paragraph in the article. It can’t be overstated how ingenious Japan’s system of zoning is and how much this has benefitt…

One thing that is critical is that the country hasn't turned home ownership into an ever growing financial asset that is meant to carry the majority of one's wealth into perpetuity

What major investments do they make instead? Or do they just not have much of a financial ladder?

Re: Why Japan has such good railways

#313

Post by kulahan »

CharlieDigital wrote: post #178
kavok wrote: post #171

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

It's facetious to pretend NIMBYs are as such because they're racist and classist, rather than because they just want to protect the single most valuable and future-determining investment they'll make in their entire lives.

Re: Why Japan has such good railways

#314

Post by jayd16 »

kulahan wrote: post #310
mjamesaustin wrote: post #210

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You are dramatically misinformed. Where I live in Los Angeles, a very large number of people park their cars primarily or exclusively on the street. Such a change would have a significant impact.

Neither LA nor NYC are even vaguely similar to the rest of the nation, so invoking their names when talking about national effects is pretty useless. They're insanely, unbelievably dense locations. The extreme majority of Americans do not live in anything near that dense.

Over 1/20 Americans live in LA or NYC. Cities in LA county don't show up in a density ranking until 15th with Maywood. WEHO is 20th and its gets less dense from there. Like 80% of Americans live in metro areas.

Re: Why Japan has such good railways

#316

Post by kulahan »

jayd16 wrote: post #314
kulahan wrote: post #310

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Neither LA nor NYC are even vaguely similar to the rest of the nation, so invoking their names when talking about national effects is pretty useless. They're insanely, unbelievably dense locations. The extreme majority of Americans do not live in anything near that dense.

Over 1/20 Americans live in LA or NYC. Cities in LA county don't show up in a density ranking until 15th with Maywood. WEHO is 20th and its gets less dense from there. Like 80% of Americans live in metro areas.

Right, 19/20 people do not need the same solution as the highly specific ones you would need for some place as dense as Manhattan or LA. You can do things in Seattle that you cannot do in Manhattan - MUCH cheaper things.

Re: Why Japan has such good railways

#317

Post by jayd16 »

kulahan wrote: post #316
jayd16 wrote: post #314

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Over 1/20 Americans live in LA or NYC. Cities in LA county don't show up in a density ranking until 15th with Maywood. WEHO is 20th and its gets less dense from there. Like 80% of Americans live in metro areas.

Right, 19/20 people do not need the same solution as the highly specific ones you would need for some place as dense as Manhattan or LA. You can do things in Seattle that you cannot do in Manhattan - MUCH cheaper things.

Have you actually been to LA? It's not that dense. Miami, Boston, Detroit, Chicago are just as or more dense depending on the neighborhood.

Re: Why Japan has such good railways

#318

Post by ssl-3 »

Freedom2 wrote: post #153
CharlieDigital wrote: post #132

> "I think that though we are a railway company, we consider ourselves a city-shaping company. In Europe for instance, railway companies simply connect cities through their terminals. That is a pretty normal way of operating in this industry, whereas what we do is completely different: we create cities and then, as a utility facility, we add the stations and the railways to connect them one with another." I think thi…

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?

Trucks can be rented. When then-wife and I were remodelling the tired old house we lived in, we didn't own a truck. We talked about it (and in this instance, had space for one), and we mathed it a bit. The numbers quickly showed that it would be very expensive to own a truck, for only a little bit of added, occasional convenience.

When we needed a truck to move cabinets or drywall or whatever, we rented one for that. It didn't cost much.

When we moved houses, we rented a truck for that. It was easier and cheaper to move with one rented huge box truck, than to own something that would be useful for that.

Otherwise: Deliveries. We just had big stuff delivered. No problem. Things like appliances and TVs were simply delivered, and this never added any expense to the purchase.

These days, even Costco delivers stuff just fine. It does tend to cost more than in-store.

Rentals and deliveries can easily cost hundreds of dollars per year. It's not free; it might even be rationalized as being rather expensive.

But owning/insuring/maintaining/fuelling/parking a car (or a truck, just the same) can easily cost thousands. It's a different magnitude.

Re: Why Japan has such good railways

#319

Post by reenorap »

Japan's railways are amazing. They are amazing because the workers have low wages, so the companies can afford to over-employ, so they have workers that are doing things like wiping the handrails every hour, and ensuring that the bathrooms are meticulous. The trains are very clean and very safe, which encourages use more to the point where everyone uses them and alternatives are starved for money.

Workers can afford to live off low wages because the cost of goods is low. A meal in Japan, a very, very good and delicious meal of pork curry is about $8 USD. That's it.

In the US it's the opposite. Wages are high. Cost of food and rent is very high. That means that they have to charge high prices. But then it's so high people look for alternatives and then traffic drops. Then they cut jobs so it's dirty, unkept and dangerous. It's a vicious cycle.

Re: Why Japan has such good railways

#320

Post by enaaem »

CharlieDigital wrote: post #132

> "I think that though we are a railway company, we consider ourselves a city-shaping company. In Europe for instance, railway companies simply connect cities through their terminals. That is a pretty normal way of operating in this industry, whereas what we do is completely different: we create cities and then, as a utility facility, we add the stations and the railways to connect them one with another." I think thi…

I believe America has built railway towns. I am surprised why America that’s very fond of capitalism never developed this concept further? With some aggressive horizontal integration you can built your own kingdom. It is brilliant!
Post reply on HN