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Why Japan has such good railways

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Re: Why Japan has such good railways

#511

Post by ericmay »

iggldiggl wrote: post #508
ericmay wrote: post #468

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not in this case. Traffic and the movement of people are a bit like water. Path of least resistance. Make parking more difficult and folks will take transit, or live closer to work. Both options are better for local economies and save everyone money.

> or live closer to work Which means you also need to battle the housing problem, too, though, plus changes in settlement patterns take years to decades to manifest. In the meantime, you might have to weather quite some griping about it or even serious pushback.

Generally speaking, not my problem and not something I care all that much about in my city.

I don't think society needs to accommodate that lifestyle so someone can live 30 miles away from work and treat my city like a place you just commute to work to. Those days are increasingly over, as cities realize this is bad for the city and incredibly expensive to operate (surface parking lots are economic extractions and tax revenues low).

You are of course right there is pushback, and things take time to manifest, but we moved to the suburbs at one point there's no reason we can't fix that. I'm not entirely sure why my city council for example cares what suburban voters who don't vote in our elections really think outside of 2nd hand complaining from employers. But they're free to relocate their large downtown offices to the suburbs, we shouldn't cater to them anyway precisely because they can move at any time leaving quite the financial problem as building patterns revolve around this 8-5 white collar commuter scheme to surface parking lots, and if the anchor tenant leaves you're left with, basically, a dead city. It's incredibly fragile and stupid.

Re: Why Japan has such good railways

#512

Post by cyberax »

ericmay wrote: post #509
cyberax wrote: post #507

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's because subways are a dead end. They need to be removed entirely, and the dense cities need to be de-densified. That's the long-term plan. > 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 Can we PLEASE just stop with the "saving money" and "off the road" nonsense? Please. Adding transit does NOT reduce…

> That's because subways are a dead end. They need to be removed entirely, I certainly agree subways aren't the way of the future, at least in America. Too expensive and, frankly, unnecessary. We are already de-densified (which is why I find your below comment bizarre) > and the dense cities need to be de-densified. That's the long-term plan. Can you point to a single elected official in an American city that has a p…

> We are already de-densified (which is why I find your below comment bizarre)

The US is rapidly densifying, and this will get _worse_ as the population starts shrinking in earnest. Japan leads the way here, its population has been going down for a while. Yet Tokyo now is in a real estate bubble.

> Can you point to a single elected official in an American city that has a plan of reducing density in their city? I'm curious.

Plenty of cities are resisting the density increases, NIMBYs are holding the line.

> Well, no, I won't stop because it's true and arguments to the contrary are faulty for various reasons. For example, suggesting that transit doesn't reduce congestion misses the fact that you can't count future growth that didn't occur.

Again. Transit does NOT reduce the congestion. This is a simple observable verifiable fact.

You can say that transit enables more density (true), but it does NOT reduce congestion.

> Every single person riding transit would be driving, if there was no transit.

And there would be fewer of these people.

> The only way for this to be true is to ignore all of the factors of car ownership. Even then it's probably still false.

In Seattle, I'm going to end up paying $150k in taxes/fees for the failrail line that will go nowhere near me. This is literally more than a lifetime of owing a cheap car.

But even if we just look at operating costs of transit, a single trip on transit is about $20. This ends up being about equal to the IRS deduction for car depreciation for the average trips.

> No I don't. Also NYC is the most populous city in America so depopulation here as an argument yet again makes 0 sense.

Look at the fertility rate for people in dense city cores vs. suburbs.

> Housing is unaffordable precisely because of the density and demand, which go hand-in-hand.

Indeed. Now think about this: the total US population is shrinking. NYC is growing. What is happening?

Hint: look at Japan.

Re: Why Japan has such good railways

#513

Post by cosmic_cheese »

BLKNSLVR wrote: post #439
cosmic_cheese wrote: post #243

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

It doesn't help that under-main-roof garages seem to be designed to only just fit small to medium sized cars despite the significant, rampant inflation of car sizes over the past few years. My family tend to opt for smaller cars, because we're practical and don't have the faulty 'keeping up with the Joneses' gene, which means we can fit two cars in a two car garage. We may still be in the majority, but it feels like…

This is true. Back when I was EV shopping, the number of models that were both proper modern EVs and could fit reasonably in my garage was shockingly small.

Re: Why Japan has such good railways

#514

Post by gniv »

bluebarbet wrote: post #289
gonzalohm wrote: post #262

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In which part of Europe is cheap to park?

Not Paris and especially not if you have an SUV: 225€ for six hours (sic). But unlike Tokyo the average narrow street in Paris is still lined with parked cars from end to end, so apparently the fees are still too low.

I don't park on the street anymore when I go to Paris by car. The private underground garages are cheaper (4-5 euro/hour).

Re: Why Japan has such good railways

#515

Post by claaams »

When your legislators fall (take bri...I mean are lobbied) for obvious grifts like "the hyperloop" our society won't progress.

For the past 2 years I moved somewhere where I did not need to have a car or to drive for pretty much any reason. I understand I am fortunate here but it seems like such a huge oversight to have designed literally all of our society around cars and vehicles instead of efficient public transport and better designed cities.

Re: Why Japan has such good railways

#516

Post by rootusrootus »

dboreham wrote: post #386
dnnddidiej wrote: post #341

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Blocking the sidewalk should be fineable?

Such rules are often not enforced.

In my experience, it's often up to the people in the neighborhood to decide. One of my neighbors down the street a number of years ago was militant about it. Code Enforcement does not routinely drive our streets looking for violations, but if someone blocked a sidewalk, parked facing the wrong way on the street, etc, Code Enforcement would magically appear to give them a ticket. Pretty sure this neighbor had them on speed dial.

Re: Why Japan has such good railways

#517

Post by rootusrootus »

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.

I have a hard enough time dealing gracefully with moderately congested trains in a place like DC. How do you coordinate your positioning so you can get off at the correct stop if the train gets packed this tightly?

Re: Why Japan has such good railways

#518

Post by ericmay »

cyberax wrote: post #512
ericmay wrote: post #509

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> That's because subways are a dead end. They need to be removed entirely, I certainly agree subways aren't the way of the future, at least in America. Too expensive and, frankly, unnecessary. We are already de-densified (which is why I find your below comment bizarre) > and the dense cities need to be de-densified. That's the long-term plan. Can you point to a single elected official in an American city that has a p…

> We are already de-densified (which is why I find your below comment bizarre) The US is rapidly densifying, and this will get _worse_ as the population starts shrinking in earnest. Japan leads the way here, its population has been going down for a while. Yet Tokyo now is in a real estate bubble. > Can you point to a single elected official in an American city that has a plan of reducing density in their city? I'm cu…

> The US is rapidly densifying, and this will get _worse_ as the population starts shrinking in earnest. Japan leads the way here, its population has been going down for a while. Yet Tokyo now is in a real estate bubble.

There are a lot of factors that go in to real estate prices, and I'm not sure it makes a lot of sense to compare Tokyo to any city in America besides New York in just about any aspect.

> Plenty of cities are resisting the density increases, NIMBYs are holding the line.

Name one. That's not the same thing as NIMBY. No city is actively against growth.

> Again. Transit does NOT reduce the congestion. This is a simple observable verifiable fact. You can say that transit enables more density (true), but it does NOT reduce congestion.

It's the same thing, and it goes very well with your thesis that the US is rapidly densifying. As it densifies congestion gets worse, adding transit takes away additional cars that would otherwise be on the road.

In Seattle whatever transit exists is gone, now those people would drive cars, ergo congestion increases. This seems very obvious.

> In Seattle, I'm going to end up paying $150k in taxes/fees for the failrail line that will go nowhere near me. This is literally more than a lifetime of owing a cheap car.

Ok and do you not see what the problem is with this argument? I could just say, I'm paying $150k more in taxes for a new highway being built somewhere that won't go anywhere near me or I won't drive on.

Second, you're not including the costs for highway construction, maintenance, insurance, gas/oil (why do you think we're in Iran) &c. that goes into car ownership.

Third - Most Americans aren't buying cheap cars.

> But even if we just look at operating costs of transit, a single trip on transit is about $20. This ends up being about equal to the IRS deduction for car depreciation for the average trips.

Weird. I took a "single trip on transit" and it was less than $5 in New York. See I can just pull numbers out of my ass and apply them without any good reason too.

> Look at the fertility rate for people in dense city cores vs. suburbs.

What about them?

> Indeed. Now think about this: the total US population is shrinking.

The US population is not shrinking.

> NYC is growing. What is happening?

People want to live there - that's my best guess.

Re: Why Japan has such good railways

#519

Post by al_borland »

crote wrote: post #426
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…

> The removed parking needs to be replaced by transit options people actually want to use. Removing surface lots doesn't immediately mean removing parking . You're still free to build parking - you just have to integrate it into the building it is serving. Which gives you a pretty big incentive to only build the parking you actually need , and share it with neighboring buildings to reduce costs. > Removing parking do…

I agree with you. The person I replied to said, “if you did nothing else that would have a significant positive impact.”

Building parking structures is also something else. They would make parking better than the surface lots, but make traffic worse.

My objection was so the “nothing else” part. Surface lots are bad, but just removing them doesn’t solve the problem they are currently poorly solving. Larger parking structures would be better, and transit options that offer options that are faster, cheaper, and easier than driving/parking would be better still.

Re: Why Japan has such good railways

#520

Post by rootusrootus »

ad133 wrote: post #391
wkrsz wrote: post #385

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Can such policies be implemented individually by cities?

Not sure about the legal frameworks in the US but that’s exactly how it works in most places in the UK. Cities have restrictions for on-street parking (metered, permitted, illegal) whereas the towns and villages don’t (unless they also bring in bylaws to help with congestion).

In the US it varies a lot based on what state you're in. Some states give the cities a wide latitude for such policies, but some states (notably 'red' ones where the state government is likely to be conservative and the cities are likely to be liberal) do not grant cities the flexibility to make ordinances like this.
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