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Why Japan has such good railways

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Re: Why Japan has such good railways

#411

Post by zozbot234 »

cmatza wrote: post #242
zhdc1 wrote: post #168

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

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.

> People do not "prefer to live in dense urban environments" by urbanist standards.

Nobody wants to live there, it's too crowded and there's too much demand for housing! Oh wait, that makes no sense.

Re: Why Japan has such good railways

#412

Post by wallst07 »

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…

If Japan was a US State, it would be fifth in size.

So you maybe right, who knows, but there is nothing stopping a state adopting these laws and seeing how it works out. California could do it, why not?

Re: Why Japan has such good railways

#413

Post by wallst07 »

prmoustache wrote: post #383
al_borland wrote: post #340

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The removed parking needs to be replaced by transit options people actually want to use. I live just outside a fairly large city. Getting downtown sucks. Driving is the only real option, but parking is annoying and expensive. Even if it was free, it would still be annoying. I almost exclusively take an Uber because of it. Those can add up and be a mixed bag as well. There is bus service, but it’s infrequent and quadr…

If you remove parking spaces it solves itself because traffic is reduced and transit options become more efficient AND more financially sound.

Or people just stop going there.

Re: Why Japan has such good railways

#414

Post by wallst07 »

newsclues wrote: post #181
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…

Makes you consider the cost of anything that is “free”

This is the whole point of https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tragedy_of_the_commons

Re: Why Japan has such good railways

#415

Post by wallst07 »

jltsiren wrote: post #250
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 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…

>The cost of passenger rail is high in America, because America doesn't build enough rail.

This seems backwards to me tbh. Is this a feeling or backed by hard data?

As much as anti-american sentiment is right now, there are still great engineering feats pulled off all the time.

Construction is expensive because we value public insight into projects and health factors for workers and everyone [and the environment] else impacted. Other countries not so much.

Re: Why Japan has such good railways

#416

Post by wallst07 »

rayiner wrote: post #325
bradchris wrote: post #311

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

> Culturally, though, it’s because that over half of the population doesn’t know that they would benefit from trains No it’s not. Everyone in America goes to Disney World, which was made by a train nerd and you can’t even drive into the parks. Everyone goes there, rides around the trains and walkable areas, and then goes home to Ohio and drives around in their giant SUV. It’s not because people don’t know about train…

100% This is true.

The only people I hear clamoring for trains in non urban areas are younger online folks (mostly living in urban areas).

I rarely hear anyone ask for it in suburbia.

Re: Why Japan has such good railways

#417

Post by crote »

zozbot234 wrote: post #402
skybrian wrote: post #354

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 Ca…

> A lot of people would have to give up their cars. You don't have to give up the car, you just park it farther away from the dense and crowded downtown and use some other personal transportation (scooter, bike) for the last mile trip.

In a city with a properly-designed transit system you wouldn't need a car at all.

I think it is quite telling how car ownership is viewed here: it it something you "have to" "give up". Car use has been normalized to such a point that it is viewed as a necessity, almost a God-given right, rather than just another mode of transport to get you from A to B.

Even in bike-heavy and transit-heavy cities you'll be hard-pressed to find trips which are impossible to do by car. Sure, it might not be the cheapest or most convenient option, but (outside of small pedestrian zones) completely banning cars is practically unheard of. On the other hand, there are plenty of suburbs where public transit basically doesn't exist, and any kind of bike infrastructure is met with hostility. For all intents and purposes, you can't live there without a car. That doesn't exactly sound like freedom to me.

Re: Why Japan has such good railways

#418

Post by wallst07 »

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…

California is about the size of Japan with the same GDP. They could pass their own funded project for public transportation.

It's a problem with the entire US needs to support it, that is politics 101.

Re: Why Japan has such good railways

#419

Post by bamboozled »

cosmic_cheese wrote: post #243
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…

Street parking makes suburbs worse, too. Almost everybody in my neighborhood has their garages piled to the ceiling with junk and parks in the street, which makes it a pain to weave through even for someone driving a compact crossover… I can’t imagine what kind of hell it is for trash and delivery drivers having to squeeze huge trucks and vans through without swiping peoples’ cars.

There is an absolute mind-boggling number of garages full of crap in Japan too.

Re: Why Japan has such good railways

#420

Post by wallst07 »

mjamesaustin wrote: post #210
thaumasiotes wrote: post #200

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Before someone buys a car, they must prove that they have a reserved night-time space on private land, either owned or leased. > This is got to be a huge factor. If the USA implemented that exact rule, it would change almost nothing. People already need nighttime parking for non-legal reasons.

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.

You changed the goalpost...

If LA or California wanted to enact these laws, they could. Passing at a federal level is a non starter.

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