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Why Japan has such good railways

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Re: Why Japan has such good railways

#571

Post by mock-possum »

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…

> Before someone buys a car, they must prove that they have a reserved night-time space on private land

Ahhhh yes

The law, in its majestic equality, forbids rich and poor alike to purchase a car without also showing proof of a reserved night-time space on private land.

Re: Why Japan has such good railways

#572

Post by nunez »

dnnddidiej wrote: post #341
nunez wrote: post #298

Earlier quoted context omitted.

my absolute biggest pet peeve about living in "modern" suburbs and a large contributing factor behind why i wanted to (and eventually did) leave them. imagine having the only well-maintained sidewalk for a good ways out be blocked by cars whose owners have 2+ car garages!

Blocking the sidewalk should be fineable?

In an ideal world where scrolling and driving would _actually_ be a punishable offense, sure!

In reality: moving away solved the problem.

Note: I grew up in an older (1940s) suburb with a town square that was actually walkable. This problem didn’t exist there. Mostly because the garage was detached and further back from houses, so you had your own proper driveway to park your car onto.

Re: Why Japan has such good railways

#573

Post by Timon3 »

cyberax wrote: post #558
ericmay wrote: post #554

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Yes, it absolutely makes sense. It doesn't. Tokyo metro is like, 30+ million people. That has very little in common with, say, where I live which is Columbus, Ohio. You can argue this point but I am closed-minded to any difference of opinion here. > The trend is simple: you build rail transit, you get unaffordable housing. Go on, try to find a counter-example. That's because the demand for rail transit is so high t…

> Tokyo metro is like, 30+ million people. Yes, and this exactly is the problem. WHY is it a city of 30 million when the country's population is shrinking? > That's because the demand for rail transit is so high that people will pay a premium to live next to it. When you say people really want to live in the suburbs, well, the market disagrees and that is reflected in housing prices. No. There is NO demand for transi…

> No. There is NO demand for transit from people living in the city. None. The demand is from _companies_ that force people to work in/near dense city cores.

Am I missing an obvious joke here? Because I've lived in multiple cities with great public transit, and this quote couldn't be further from the truth - the people love their public transit options, and they keep voting to build it out further.

Re: Why Japan has such good railways

#574

Post by venzaspa »

wongarsu wrote: post #448
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…

In dense cities parking garages (both underground, free standing and on top of commercial properties) works great to give high-density parking space The difficulty would be in transitioning. Building spots only open up so often

Seems like a poor use of space when you can just work at making things easier for people to travel without a car.

Re: Why Japan has such good railways

#575

Post by gpvos »

dgellow wrote: post #263
chmod775 wrote: post #221

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not really the same thing. They're much larger already than most stores you'd see in urban Japan. Think more in terms of small convenience stores ("Spätis" with daily necessities) everywhere. Typical distance to a store is maybe 500-1000m in Germany. In dense areas of Japanese cities it's closer to one store every 100m-200m. So in Germany it'd be a 10 minute walk, while in Japan most of your "walk" would be getting d…

I see. What you describe does seem to match what I experienced in NYC, Portugal, and Spain? Small supermarkets everywhere with a bit of a random selection of items

The Żabkas in Poland too, I suppose, at least the smaller ones.

Re: Why Japan has such good railways

#576

Post by ChrisMarshallNY »

rsynnott wrote: post #539
ChrisMarshallNY wrote: post #14

I love the Japanese rail system. I am retired, now, so don't travel there, anymore, but I always used to cry, after coming back to the US, and getting on LIRR trains. The most amazing thing, is how on-time they are, and how precise their stops are. They have marks on the platform, showing exactly where the doors will open (Protip: Don't stand directly in front of the doors, when they open). I hear that this is the re…

> how precise their stops are I'm not sure how unique that is. Many rail systems, in most stations, have platforms only just long enough for the longest train. Most commuter stations in Ireland, say, can take the longest commuter train which calls at that station, and no more (typically because there were lengthened to that to accommodate that commuter train). It has to stop _fairly_ precisely, or some doors will be…

> I am sometimes on a train that stops short, and then has to slowly crawl forward to align fully with the platform.

In Japan, that would get the engineer fired.

Re: Why Japan has such good railways

#577

Post by enaaem »

ChrisMarshallNY wrote: post #322
enaaem wrote: post #245

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Grain culture vs rice culture. Rice cultivation requires collective water management, so you get more collectivist cultures. Growing grain mostly depends on rain, so your harvest depends on your own work.

That's an interesting theory. Makes just as much sense as mine. It’s really hard to be empirical, in these types of things.

There was an experiment in China [1].

[1] https://www.nature.com/articles/s41467-024-44770-w

Re: Why Japan has such good railways

#578

Post by mastermage »

YmiYugy wrote: post #230
justanotherjoe wrote: post #167

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's worth mentioning that swiss is a nation of 9 million, whereas Japan has 128 million people. I'm not sure how comparable it is. You probably don't need to pass through a lot of settlements for any public projects in swiss, for example.

I think it's more politics and economics. Switzerland is quite a lot richer than Japan and is extremely decentralized politically. That creates strong incentives to provide good public services even to mountain villages. It also helps that Switzerland isn't experiencing population decline. The Swiss population as a whole is growing quite rapidly and from what limited data I could find even rural regions are growing.…

Quite alot richer than the 4th richest Economy in the world?

Re: Why Japan has such good railways

#579

Post by mono442 »

itsmek wrote: post #567
rootusrootus wrote: post #523

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Unfortunately that does not seem to have helped them keep housing affordable. Looks just as bad as anywhere else.

Source? I've always thought of Tokyo as a rare example of abundant and affordable housing among major world cities. Their rent to income ratio is like 0.3 while most major global cities are 0.35-0.4

tokyo is cheaper than most cities relatively to the average income but you have to consider the fact that many apartments are like 20 - 30 m^2

Re: Why Japan has such good railways

#580

Post by superdisk »

mmooss wrote: post #540
rendang wrote: post #524

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I lived in NYC for many years. Bodily fluids and liquid left on seats, litter, gag-inducing smelly people, people having episodes and screaming, all common enough to see on a weekly or monthly basis as a daily commuter. I have not been to Japan but I can't imagine they have the same level of antisocial behavior

> weekly or monthly basis So not "extremely common" as the commenter upthread said. > liquid left on seats As in, something spilled? > litter Lol. Only on a weekly or monthly basis? > gag-inducing smelly people I think some people are looking to be judgmental. > antisocial behavior That's taking it pretty far; it's easy to ignore these things which are almost always harmless - none have ever affected my life. Maybe b…

You can plug your ears and accept riding run-down trains full of shit, litter, puke, and threatening mentally ill people, in the name of not being "hateful," or as a society you can choose to have dignity and not put up with that.
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