Why Japan has such good railways • Hacker News Board

Re: Why Japan has such good railways

#491

Post by Nasrudith » Sun, Apr 19, 2026, 5:50 PM UTC

zozbot234 wrote: post #407

tokioyoyo wrote: post #297

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

> 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. That's why America never layed any railroads in the 19th century, and everyone just rode by horse instead. Oh wait, that's not what happened at all.

You are ignoring major cultural shifts - people also lived tightly packed into tenements then too. The tolerance for such space sharing without common purpose has declined.

Re: Why Japan has such good railways

#492

Post by silexia » Sun, Apr 19, 2026, 5:53 PM UTC

The problem in the United States is how difficult it is to get permits, unnecessary environmental regulations and massive waste and corruption (see Gavin Newsom and California's failed high speed rail).

Re: Why Japan has such good railways

#493

Post by ricardobeat » Sun, Apr 19, 2026, 5:57 PM UTC

laughing_man wrote: post #422

The real reason Japan has such good railways has to do with politics. Japanese politicians were unable to create jobs (and collect bribes) with military spending due to post war constitutional restrictions, so instead of a military industrial complex they created what some have dubbed the "construction state". That's why they have cisterns under Tokyo which can handle a 400 year flood, and more germane to this discus…

This is completely ignoring the entire piece. Zoning, rail companies having large real estate interest and revenue, profitability, vertical integration, public policy.

If having train service to remote areas and 400-year flood prevention systems are signs of dysfunction, things are going pretty great. Not all public utilities have to be profitable on their own.

Re: Why Japan has such good railways

#494

Post by ericmay » Sun, Apr 19, 2026, 6:19 PM UTC

ghaff wrote: post #446

wallst07 wrote: post #413

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Or people just stop going there.

Exactly. I already don't go into the large relatively nearby city as much as I used to because of both general inclination and traffic/parking hassles. Which is fine. But if people in the main stop going into the city you'd probably see a drop-off in the city amenities that make many people want to live there in the first place.

This is like that phrase “nobody goes there anymore it’s too popular”. The surface parking lots would be replaced with things people want to go downtown for in the first place, never mind additional residences which mean more customers for businesses.

Nowhere in the world, and I mean the entire world, has the scenario in which surface parking lots are replaced with other productive uses have resulted in a drop off in city amenities - it’s a non-sequitur. The businesses and residences that replace the lots are city amenities. Adding them has the opposite effect that you describe.

Think about it another way - what if we add surface parking lots? What would you drive to downtown to do? There wouldn’t be anything there because the amenities would have been replaced by mostly empty parking lots.

We can also just have multi-story garages. We can actually increase parking (on a social scale) while removing surface parking lots. That would create amenities and allow folks like yourself to easily come to town. Would it cost? Sure. So what?

Re: Why Japan has such good railways

#495

Post by skybrian » Sun, Apr 19, 2026, 6:23 PM UTC

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.

The San Francisco neighborhoods I'm thinking of aren't downtown. they usually require residence permits to park.

Re: Why Japan has such good railways

#496

Post by skybrian » Sun, Apr 19, 2026, 6:25 PM UTC

crote wrote: post #410

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…

> 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. ... which is exactly why it can have a huge impact! The default American suburban street is insanely wide due to the assumption that people will need on-street parking. Get rid of the unused on-street parking spaces and you immediately increa…

> Get rid of the unused on-street parking spaces and you immediately increase a suburb's density by something like 5%-10%.

As you say, only for new construction. The lack of new construction is itself the problem.

Re: Why Japan has such good railways

#497

Post by jltsiren » Sun, Apr 19, 2026, 6:31 PM UTC

wallst07 wrote: post #415

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…

>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] els…

Infrastructure construction is more about administration than engineering. If the people in charge have not administered similar projects before, they will make mistakes.

Public insight, health, worker welfare, and environment are pretty universal values in developed countries. What may set the US apart is their particular version of the common law system. A lot of people have the standing to sue someone, causing unpredictable delays and cost overruns for an infrastructure project. In many other countries, most cases related to infrastructure projects are handled by administrative courts. They will determine narrowly whether all the relevant laws were followed, and do so cost-effectively and in a predictable time.

Experience with the decisions of the relevant courts in similar cases is a major component of basic competence in infrastructure projects. If you can predict what the courts are willing to approve, you can plan the project accordingly. If you can predict how much time and money the court process will take, you can include that in the plans. But if you don't have the experience or the courts are unpredictable, you are bound to make mistakes.

Re: Why Japan has such good railways

#498

Post by ericmay » Sun, Apr 19, 2026, 6:32 PM UTC

tnk0 wrote: post #437

cyberax wrote: post #342

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The main low-hanging fruit is just removing surface parking lots You're pre-supposing that transit is _better_ than cars. It's not. ESPECIALLY the Japanese transit. I certainly don't want to suffer through this bullshit every day: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o9Xg7ui5mLA

I'm a Tokyo local and yes, this is real. Even I find it uncomfortable. On the Yamanote Line during rush hour, trains come every 2-3 minutes and it can still look close to this. That said, most people's daily commute isn't this extreme -- it depends heavily on the line and direction. The tradeoff most Tokyo residents accept is: 30 minutes of crowded train vs. hours stuck in traffic with nowhere to park.

The OP is missing that you do the same thing you just do it in a car in a congested highway with your road rage, spend a lot of money, and all of that to avoid the impression of a subway ride that would never happen in an American city except maybe New York because these cities obviously lack population density at the scale of Tokyo. Oh and you get in car crashes and die.

This isn’t an anti-car rant. I’m actually trying to just get folks who don’t want to drive and shouldn’t be driving off the road so we can save money and do more with the infrastructure we already have while restoring economic bases and entrepreneurship to our non-coastal cities. It is quite literally a win for everyone except bloated highway departments and their downstream contractors.

Re: Why Japan has such good railways

#499

Post by balderdash » Sun, Apr 19, 2026, 6:42 PM UTC

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…

The availability of parking is inversely proportional to its cost. High cost = lots of availability.

Re: Why Japan has such good railways

#500

Post by jayd16 » Sun, Apr 19, 2026, 6:47 PM UTC

eloisant wrote: post #488

jayd16 wrote: post #324

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I like trains but the logic is flawed. If we banned hats, or made it so they were very expensive, less people would wear hats. And sure, probably more places would worry about shade because hats are not an option... But it doesn't really prove that's the right thing to do or that hats are inefficient use of cloth.

It's not about artificially increasing car ownership price, it's about making people pay for what they use (parking space) instead of having it paid for by the whole society like a socialized good.

But it is. Otherwise we'd just be talking about raising meter prices and not trains.