CrunchGear

People like to fly, people fly even when trains would be much faster, it’s weird

The US is automobile driven. Japan (and Europe) isn’t.

There is no excuse for the sorry state of public transportation in the US. I lived in Hong Kong and China for several years. China has a train system that can get you from Shenzhen to Beijing in around 24 hours at a *very* reasonable price. The train from Shenzhen to Guangzhou takes around thirty minutes now if you get the non-stop train. It used to take an hour and ten minutes when the trains were only slightly better than US trains. There will be a fast train from Hong Kong to Macau sometime in the next several years. Hong Kong, Shenzhen, Shanghai, Beijing and Guangzhou all have very good intracity train systems. I was recently in Bangkok. They have one new underground train system and two older suspended trains. Hong Kong has the most efficient public transportation system I have ever seen. Trains come about every two minutes at most stops. Mini-buses are fast and on time. Buses go everywhere. Taxis are extremely easy to find if you need them.

I don’t think NY’s train system is bad. It works and it runs all night. But it needs improvement if NY is to scale up to a more efficient and robust financial center.

Instead of scaling our resources into more efficient machines, we spread out into unremarkable plots of green grass. As a result, we have less efficient communication, our energy needs are greater, our energy consumption is less efficient, and we just aren’t as vibrant as we could be. There are very few exceptions in the US.

Not me, Marcus, I love riding the train. If we had a train system in the U.S. such as Europe or Asia have, I’d be one happy train-hopper! And friends and family could stop nagging me to come visit. I’d love to…on the train. Don’t have to pay for gas, or get stuck in traffic, can relax in a nice seat, no airport/airline nightmares, it’s cheaper…yep. Gimme the train.

Easy… cars are too expensive to buy and maintain in japan… besides, who the hell wants to join traffic chaos when subway (train) chaos reigns supreme! (haven just returned from Fukuoka, Japan)

Jon

Those pictures made me sad. I want to go back to Japan now. The trains are just the beginning of how awesome Japan is.

As has already been said, trains are a primary source of transportation in Japan and therefore they are given great emphasis on technology, design and operational efficiency. The emphasis on trains is at a national level.

Trains in America are only a small piece of the transportation landscape and of course, the car is the biggest piece. Trains in America only have strong interest in a few cities so they do not get the attention and money from the national level in order to make them the best they can be.

I have traveled on the Shinknasen. They are awesome. There is nothing like standing on the station platform while a non-stop express train blasts through the station 15 feet away at 150 miles an hour.

I have ridden the Shinkansen. They are awesome. There is nothing like standing on the station platform when a non-stop express train blasts through the station 15 feet away at 150 miles an hour.

@Jon 2

According to your argumentation, the cars and roads in America should be far superior to those in Japan. Strangely, Japanese cars are superior to American cars (at least the way I see it) and the manufacturers in Japan do far better than their American counterparts (by the way Wall Street sees it). Moreover, if you have ever driven in Japan, you’d know that the roads are for the most part in far better condition than those in America.

There is simply no excuse for trains sucking as bad as they do in America.

The reasons for “no excuse for trains sucking as bad as they do in America” are:

1) We simply don’t want to pay for them
2) We sold all the tracks to the cargo carriers
3) Cities in America are much farther apart than in Japan
4) We won’t accept a huge gas tax increase (see reason #1 above) to subsidize the trains.
5) Japan doesn’t have the temperature extremes that help to cause road damage here in America
6) No American would put up with the crowding on Tokyo’s local train lines

Finally, my ride on the Shinkansen was a nightmare. I was unable to get a reserved seat and I spent the entire trip from Kyoto to Tokyo stuffed into the vestibule straddling my suitcase with my neck bent so that my head could clear the ceiling curve.

Cities in densely populated regions (East Coast, California) are not that much farther apart. Also, the terrain is quite a bit easier than that in Japan (at least at the East Coast).

AFAIK, Japanese trains are not subsidized by a tax on gasoline. Shinkansen trains are quite expensive, and they make a huge profit.

Japan has considerably varied weather, is very mountainous, and has earthquakes throughout the country all the time.

I am not an American, but I live in America. And I would take even the crowded Tokyo train any day over the 1 hour highway deadlock that my morning commute incurs.

I’m sorry to hear about your Shinkansen nightmare. You were probably traveling during peak season (e.g., Golden Week or O-Bon) and didn’t get your ticket early enough. Normally it is completely straightforward to get a reserved seat even on the same day. I personally buy my tickets one day in advance, and I have never had an issue with getting a reserved seat. (But then, I do know when the peak travel seasons are, and I try to avoid them.)

Actually, I rather like Japan’s train system. And I very much enjoyed my three visits to Japan.

To get to your points, JR (Japan Rail) is government-subsidized. While it may not be directly subsidized by a gasoline tax, the money collected from the very high tax rate on gasoline goes somewhere. Also, many local train lines are owned by department store companies who have combination station/stores. They *definitely* subsidize their train lines as ownership thereof is often cited as a drain on their profitablity.

Anyone who has experienced the utter crush of bodies on any Japanese train during peak periods does not soon forget the experience. I plan to take my wife to Japan in the next year or two and we will avoid rush hour at all costs because I’m certain she will not put up with the crowding.

While it gets cold in Japan, except for Hokkaido it rarely gets cold enough to freeze the ground, a major cause of road decay.

Finally, I reiterate that we just don’t want to pay for the real cost of trains. The primary cost thereof is that of acquiring the land necessary to create the new tracks needed for high-speed operation.

Here in the US, we really don’t have any other options except to figure out how to create a sustainable car-based system. On a personal note, I live in New York City and only use my car for weekend travel outside the city. The rest of the time, NYC’s excellent subway systems gets me where I need to go quickly, cheaply and safely.

I have been to Hong Kong and I have been to Japan. I admire the electronic fare collection system in Hong Kong. Exact change is an unused word in the Hong Kong transportation systems since a decade ago. I admire the bullet train and subway systems in Japan. The trains are so punctual that you can set you watch by seeing when the trains arrive. You can travel from Tokyo to Osaka in about 2 hours and you can catch a train every 5 minutes or so. It is not only about speed, frequency is an important factor in saving travel time too. Try to compare that to the best airline you have in the US. What about the delay at the airport? The trip from your home to the airport is not trivial either. Would you rather catch a train a few blocks from your home than to an airport 20 miles away?

The US is hopeless in their public transportation system. In any good public transportation system, everything is about connection. When you can move from one system to another without any delay, you don’t need to rent a car or call a taxi. The long distance transportation and local subway must be tied together. The subway in Chicago can get under the airport terminal, travellers can get on the subway before leaving the building. That is a good example. All they need to do is to implement similar connection with some major Amtrak stations.

Public transportation works best in frequently traveled route. Imagine a bullet train between LA and Las Vegas, it will eliminate the traffic jam on I-15 every weekend. But before the bullet train can become useful, make sure it has connection with the subway systems in LA. Also the monorail that connects all the Las Vegas Casino needs to connect to the bullet train station too.

Most families in Japan own a family car. In the morning, the wife will drive the kids and husband to the train station. The family car will be used on short trips on family outtings in the weekends. Such arrangement requires a stay home house-wife. That may not work in the US.