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Why Japan has such good railways

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Re: Why Japan has such good railways

#351

Post by landedgentry »

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…

S.Y. Lee wrote an excellent series on the privatization of Japan National Railways (JNR). This is part 4 of 4: https://www.substack-bahn.net/p/the-rise-and-fall-of-japans-...

If I remember correctly, the privatization of JNR was mostly political, and has little relation to the subsequent successes or failures of the railways. In other words, keeping it public would not necessarily have changed the outcome for passengers.

Re: Why Japan has such good railways

#352

Post by hibikir »

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.

The idea that LA is an unbelievably dense location is puzzling. My Spanish hometown is significantly denser than Los Angeles. Even large parts of NYC are not in any way dense by global urban standards.

As for people parking in the street in the US, you will find them in many smaller cities. Look at random pictures of south St Louis: Plenty of neighborhoods built before every house had a 2 car garage, and therefore with a lot of on-street parking used every day. And that's with single family homes. Hell, you find this in deep suburbs too, where someone decides they want 4 cars, and have the garage full of crap. I could take pictures of at least ten cars parked on the curb, and at least 40 outdoors in driveways if I went for a one mile loop around my 4th ring suburb.

Now, not that this is the main reason Americans still use cars to go anywhere right now, as the rest of the infrastructure around me also makes car mandatory. Suburbs with houses 3 miles from the nearest business, shops inaccessible on foot, streets that, while supposedly crossable, are extremely unsafe to pedestrians... In a world where, say, we limit each household to one car, my entire suburb becomes abandoned, and most businesses collapse, kind of like a place like Madrid collapses if one didn't run any public transit for 4 months.

Re: Why Japan has such good railways

#353

Post by kj4211cash »

SilverElfin wrote: post #233
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…

That won’t fix the cost of rail in America, which is the main reason America doesn’t have better rail. Look at California high speed rail or light rail in Seattle. They have insane costs per mile, are still very over budget, falling behind schedule, and basically are forever grifts. The availability of parking is unrelated to these issues. It comes back to mismanagement and corruption.

The per mile costs are definitely high in America, for a lot of reasons, often related to laws and policies, but that's not really the issue. At the end of 2025, nearly 20 years since California voters passed Prop 1A, we have spent under $15 Billion on California High Speed Rail. As a point of contrast, the cost of 2025's tax cut extensions is estimated to be $4 Trillion. The fact is that we don't have quality intercity passenger rail in this country because politicians aren't willing to support it and fund it as reasonable levels. Seattle light rail is an interesting example because politicians there are willing to support it and so ... we are building it, despite the relatively high per mile costs. LA Metro is interesting right because the voters passed sales taxes that funded various light rail projects. So LA is building better rail. But the political process means that every district supervisor gets their own rail project and so we have light rail to Pomona but are struggling to get a subway down Wilshire where it's obviously more needed. Anyways, all this is to say, politics is a big part of the reason why we don't have better rail in America. And blaming "grift" is a right-wing political talking point that probably doesn't help.

Re: Why Japan has such good railways

#354

Post by skybrian »

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…

It would make a difference in dense cities like San Francisco where many people park on the street. A lot of people would have to give up their cars.

Meanwhile, in rural areas and many suburbs, it would be pointless paperwork, because everyone has a big enough driveway for their cars and nobody parks on the street at night.

So it seems like it would be difficult to get enough people in favor to do it state-wide in California? Wherever it would actually force people to do something, it would be unpopular.

Re: Why Japan has such good railways

#355

Post by peyton »

kj4211cash wrote: post #353
SilverElfin wrote: post #233

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That won’t fix the cost of rail in America, which is the main reason America doesn’t have better rail. Look at California high speed rail or light rail in Seattle. They have insane costs per mile, are still very over budget, falling behind schedule, and basically are forever grifts. The availability of parking is unrelated to these issues. It comes back to mismanagement and corruption.

The per mile costs are definitely high in America, for a lot of reasons, often related to laws and policies, but that's not really the issue. At the end of 2025, nearly 20 years since California voters passed Prop 1A, we have spent under $15 Billion on California High Speed Rail. As a point of contrast, the cost of 2025's tax cut extensions is estimated to be $4 Trillion. The fact is that we don't have quality interc…

> political process means that every district supervisor gets their own rail project

This is part of what people mean by “grift.” Anyway, I’m not right wing. I just want cheap rail done competently. That’s not “not the issue.” As a voter, that is very much an issue for me.

Re: Why Japan has such good railways

#356

Post by ahhhhnoooo »

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?

I ride my cargo bike to Costco. I can fit a full shopping cart on it, getting enough for a family of three regularly and easily. With a small hatchback car I could easily fit way more. If I had a convenient train I'd shop more frequently with a rolling 2 wheel cart.

It's really not difficult to shop large volume thongs without a giant car.

Re: Why Japan has such good railways

#357

Post by dividefuel »

zhdc1 wrote: post #168
ianm218 wrote: post #133

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Europe and USA are both huge places so it depends what you mean. If you compare major east coast cities - Boston, DC, and NYC to European metros like Paris/ Madrid/ Lisbon the biggest tax on the citizens is the same in that it’s impossible to build anything so a huge % of income needs to go to housing.

East coast cities were built before modern building codes. Something that, for some reason, people in the states don't want to accept is that - when given the choice - the vast majority of people prefer living in dense urban environments.

Do you have a source for this? What threshold is needed for it to be 'dense'?

Re: Why Japan has such good railways

#358

Post by Larrikin »

ttul wrote: post #219
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.

You haven’t lived until you have experienced the Japanese Kombini (convenience store).

There's a lot of places to get decent fried chicken, onigiri, and snacks. It's just 7 and I holdings still let's the US 711 suck

Re: Why Japan has such good railways

#359

Post by queSide »

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…

It's worth noting that for a kei car (the small 660cc cars that make up most of japan's car sales) you do not actually need to prove you have parking space in some regions of japan (like you do with non kei cars)
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