Hacker News Reader

Comment by rayiner | Hacker News Reader

Tokyo is also not particularly congested.

It's really not. It's actually a surprisingly livable and automobile traffic-free city for being literally the largest in the world. (Obviously the train system plays a huge role in that.)

Nor is it particularly high rise outside of the center, it’s surprisingly sprawl-like as well.

The good thing about Tokyo is that they let people build whatever they want and somehow it works, there are congested areas and not so congested areas and in between areas and non consistent areas, they just have it all and people can choose where they want to live.

On the plus side, it's sprawl with train and subway stations, and plenty of buses and taxis.

Well, the metro population is ~40 million.

But even then, most of the "sprawl" is still very dense by American standards, a lot of the suburban areas have comparable population density to Boston or SF.

Most people commute by train. We are improving, but the morning commute is something foreigners consider particularly wacky, and not something that they want to repeat everyday. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E7kor5nHtZQ

I've seen these clips before and always wonder where these examples are on the scale of "average experience".

Is this the worst of the worst? ie- only the few most congested stations experience this during peak hours on a particularly bad day?

Or is it relatively expected? ie- most major stations will experience this during peak hours on an average day?

Station attendants pushing people in isn't that common, most lines in Tokyo have a train coming every minute or two during the morning and that would just make everyone late. However can't move your arms crowded is the morning commute everyday unless you live far from work at the end of the line and can snake a seat. Even then it's not guaranteed (another compounding addition to your stress) and often times you'll be just as miserable as everyone else but with the added misery of the longest commute.

It's interesting to experience once on vacation because you planned to go to the airport during the morning. It's something else entirely to do it everyday in a stuffy suit until you retire.

However that level of travel only happens in the morning. Overtime culture spreads out the number of people leaving after work, even though technically everyone should get off around the same time.

I usually spring for a hotel in Narita for the last night in Japan. While probably not the most charming place, it's a town in its own right and good food can be had so you're not dependent on the hotel restaurant.

Going to Tokyo for the evening is mostly out, since the train connections at night are terrible and a taxi will hit you with 200 - 250$.

Nevertheless it definitely beats the Shinjuku early morning rush hour with heavy luggage experience, which really is pretty fucking dreadful.

I was in a central part of Tokyo while working out of Google's Tokyo office for a few days, and didn't experience any crush passenger loads in the morning. In fact, the trains had plenty of space.

But I did experience a very, very packed train once while I was there, taking a commuter express line out of the city...at 9pm.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com