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Why Japan has such good railways

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Re: Why Japan has such good railways

#581

Post by eloisant »

jayd16 wrote: post #500
eloisant wrote: post #488

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

When all public parking will be metered we'll talk! For now, in US most parking is free.

For example supermarket parking: they are forced by law to build huge parking lot. You pay not those not with your taxes but with your groceries, even if you take the bus or walk to go to the supermarket.

Re: Why Japan has such good railways

#582

Post by throwaway2037 »

scythe wrote: post #304
yongjik wrote: post #302

Earlier quoted context omitted.

At the same time, the same government, mysteriously, has no problem building a vast network of roads reaching everywhere and spanning the whole country. If the US government neglects a section of highway until a city becomes unreachable by roads, there will be riots. The same city losing a train service? Totally expected, trains are supposed to suck. The sorry state of American public transport is a self-fulfilling p…

>the same government, mysteriously, has no problem building a vast network of roads reaching everywhere and spanning the whole country. Our road-building has slowed dramatically since the 1980s. The Interstate Highway network would be much more expensive and slow to build today. >If the US government neglects a section of highway until a city becomes unreachable by roads, there will be riots. Consider John's Island,…

    > Consider John's Island, South Carolina. The highway that was supposed to go there has been delayed for 33 years.
I Googled about this issue. It looks like it is multi-factor: legal battles, lack of funding, and significant conflict over growth management vs. environmental concerns.

In summary: Money and NIMBYism.

Re: Why Japan has such good railways

#583

Post by throwaway2037 »

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…

You raise some very good points about the expansion of rail in Los Angeles basin. However, this part: "struggling to get a subway down Wilshire where it's obviously more needed". As I understand, it is incredibly complex to build subways in that part of LA basin due to natural gas deposits that make tunnelling dangerous and expensive.

Re: Why Japan has such good railways

#584

Post by throwaway2037 »

wallst07 wrote: post #418
kj4211cash wrote: post #353

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

    > California is about the size of Japan with the same GDP.
On the surface, this is true, but it ignores taxation structure when comparing a federal state to a sovereign nation. It would be very hard to get state-level income tax rates above 15% in the US. That cannot compete against federal/national tax rates that normally approach 40% in US and Japan. In any nation, the vast majority of large mass transit project construction costs are paid for by the central/national gov't. I would characterise your comparison is disingenuous.

    > They could pass their own funded project for public transportation.
They could not reasonably 100% self-fund large mass transit projects. They need federal dollars, a lot of them, and it is very competitive to get them. As an example, look at how long it has taken to raise necessary funds to build the Silicon Valley BART extension. There is tremendous support from the public for this project, but it takes a long time to raise necessary local funds. In parallel, they need to "win" federal support for the lion's share of construction costs.

Re: Why Japan has such good railways

#585

Post by throwaway2037 »

jayd16 wrote: post #317
kulahan wrote: post #316

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Right, 19/20 people do not need the same solution as the highly specific ones you would need for some place as dense as Manhattan or LA. You can do things in Seattle that you cannot do in Manhattan - MUCH cheaper things.

Have you actually been to LA? It's not that dense. Miami, Boston, Detroit, Chicago are just as or more dense depending on the neighborhood.

I totally agree about LA county. I don't think many people comprehend its size. It is fuckin' enormous, like the size of a small nation (it is one third the size of Belgium)!

Re: Why Japan has such good railways

#586

Post by throwaway2037 »

kulahan wrote: post #556
bamboozled wrote: post #428

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Is it rough when a house costs 10-20x less than in countries where the best you can reasonable hope for is a whopping 10% return on your money?

10% is the bog-standard minimum, so you're more hoping for 12-15%, and the houses in Japan are knocked down and rebuilt between essentially every occupant, so they're pieces of garbage meant to last a decade or so, and about as environmentally unfriendly as one can get. So yeah, it's extremely rough when there's nothing valuable to invest your money in.

My internal Brandolini's Law alarm is sounding loud and clear from this post.

If you think real investors should make 12-15%, you are essentially bankrupting the next generation. (Even 10% annualised would do it.) That is enormous intergenerational wealth transfer, ensuring the next generation cannot own a home before they are 50 years old or they rent forever.

Outside of central Tokyo (the most central ku's surrounded by Yamanote train loop line), there is almost no capital appreciation for homes (and apartments) because NIMBYism does not exist (quite literally through the national building code). As a result, they build enough for the demand, and home prices are relatively stable, roughly rising at the rate of inflation. France is pretty similar outside of central Paris. Before post-COVID inflation got out of control, Germany was also similar.

The center of Tokyo and Osaka are a bit special because they are the largest job centers in the whole country, and there is very (insanely?) high demand and not enough land to maintain low capital appreciation for homes. That said, there is still constant tear-down/rebuild projects in Tokyo to build denser housing. It is hard to walk 10 mins in central Tokyo and not see a tear-down/rebuild project. Fortunately, they have incredibly strict noise controls at construction sites, so you rarely hear it, but you see it.

    > the houses in Japan are knocked down and rebuilt between essentially every occupant
This is absolutely untrue. This is a near-perfect Internet Brain/Terminally Online type of comment. Houses are normally only knocked down in Japan when they are 50+ years old. (The "30 year rule" from the 1980s just won't die on the non-Japanese Internet.) The stuff that I see knocked down looks like it is from the 1950s -- pure wood, rotted to the core, and paper-thin windows. It makes no sense to restore these homes when there is no legal restriction for tear-down/rebuild. There are lots and lots of second hand single family homes that change hands between owners. All of the people that I know who own single family homes bought them second hand. There is a whole segment of the real estate construction market that does home restoration. It is pretty common to buy a second-hand single family home, then do X currency amount of restoration. Sometimes, these companies buy the used homes themselves, do restoration, then sell at a price for profit. Apartments are similar in wider Tokyo area.

    > they're pieces of garbage meant to last a decade or so
Again: Internet Brain/Terminally Online type of comment.

    > So yeah, it's extremely rough when there's nothing valuable to invest your money in.
Have you seen the Nikkei 225 stock index in the last 10 years? (How does the total return compare to your country of residence?) Also, Japan does not enforce capital controls, so regular people are welcome to invest their money in foreign stock markets, such as the S&P 500 stock index. They can do so using numerous domestically-listed mutual funds and ETFs.

Re: Why Japan has such good railways

#587

Post by throwaway2037 »

savanaly wrote: post #78
ttul wrote: post #75

“Japan’s liberal land use regulation makes it straightforward to build new neighborhoods next to railway lines, giving commuters easy access to city centers. It also enables the densification of these centers, which means that commuters have more places they want to go.” This is the most important paragraph in the article. It can’t be overstated how ingenious Japan’s system of zoning is and how much this has benefitt…

>how ingenious Japan’s system of zoning is I'm only barely familiar with it so I ask this in good faith: is it really ingenious or is it just more permissive? My bias/priors are that the simpler and truer statement is: it can't be overstated how beneficial more permissive zoning laws are to a society.

This is a fair question. In short: Permissive. If you want to learn more, talk with any LLM about it. There are a bazillion YouTube videos and blog posts discussing the matter to no end.

Here is a good YouTube video to you started: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=R5pPcV54kiQ

Re: Why Japan has such good railways

#588

Post by throwaway2037 »

Tiktaalik wrote: post #570
SenHeng wrote: post #473

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Property taxes on land zoned for residential use are 6x more expensive if left bare. That’s why Japan has an akiya plague, because even a dilapidated building will keep taxes down. I couldn’t find a more general article so here’s an example from a generic small town council. https://www.city.inagi.tokyo.jp/en/faq/kurashi/1001633/10016...

You're right. I'm not sure how I got mislead or misremembered the dynamic here. I thought there was a specific clear tax benefit but doesn't seem so. There are tax benefits for new buildings for a limited time so maybe that's what I was thinking about and became confused.

Leaving aside your mistake, you raise a great point. Why are there so many empty lots in central Tokyo for sale? It makes no sense financially! Maybe they assume they can tear-down the existing structure and sell it faster than the tax penalty will hit?

Re: Why Japan has such good railways

#589

Post by throwaway2037 »

nottorp wrote: post #104
savanaly wrote: post #78

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>how ingenious Japan’s system of zoning is I'm only barely familiar with it so I ask this in good faith: is it really ingenious or is it just more permissive? My bias/priors are that the simpler and truer statement is: it can't be overstated how beneficial more permissive zoning laws are to a society.

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.

A huge amount of residential homes are actually in light industry zoned areas. I learned this surprising fact here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wfm2xCKOCNk

Re: Why Japan has such good railways

#590

Post by ericmay »

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…

> Yes, and this exactly is the problem. WHY is it a city of 30 million when the country's population is shrinking?

Because there are better opportunities and amenities in the city? I don't know. Can you elaborate on what your larger point is here? I still don't understand why Tokyo is relevant to this conversation, but happy to chat about it if you can help me better understand the point you are trying to make.

> 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.

Or maybe companies are locating to where people want to live? I.e. California or San Francisco specifically.

> Moving goalposts?

You just named a random city, the least you can do is grab an article where an elected official is talking about how they're against growth or urban infill or something.

Then we can talk about why this is a bad example.

> I'm sorry. I can't argue with you in good faith. You have zero understanding of the problem, and when confronted with facts or examples, you slink away from them. Because they are not to your liking.

Or maybe you aren't doing a good enough job explaining the problem. What does filling some crappy surface parking lots and putting a tram through Downtown Columbus, Ohio (for example) have to do with Tokyo or New York City?

> For what city do you want me to give you the data? I can assure you that I'm not cherry-picking, and that NYC is actually one of the better-run transits.

Columbus, Ohio. Let's talk about that since you have the data and I live here and can confirm your data.

> Spoken like a true privileged dude.

Damn right, and I'm not apologizing for it. :)

> Have you ever heard of doing what you hate because you _have_ to? That's exactly what is happening with cities.

I've heard of it. I would categorize commuting as "doing what you hate".

> The problem is that cities are getting _more_ dense. Not the absolute density.

Doesn't seem to be a problem. The increase in density increases tax revenue, allows folks to live closer to where they work, enables entrepreneurs to start new businesses because they have a larger serviceable population, and more. And that can all happen while I still have a 2.5 car garage, car, and single family home.

If you want to talk about density in American cities, I'd suggest not talking about Tokyo or New York City, because those are extreme outliers and no American city is going to look like that anytime soon.

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