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Comment by renewiltord | Hacker News Reader

It's great to use as a tourist. Very easy to get where you want and top notch frequency. One thing I thought was interesting is that transit advocates in the California I was visiting from push for free transit and transit sucks balls here while Japan generally was fee-paid transit and their transit ruled. I frequently travel to Hong Kong and I moved to California from London and so I looked them up and they hadn't transformed to free either.

If I'm honest, I get the feeling that transit advocates in California are trying to kill transit.

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Another big difference between transit in Tokyo versus transit in California: in Tokyo many of the lines are owned and operated by private companies. JR East used to be part of Japan National Railways, but the Japanese government privatized JNR in 1987, and it was split into several regional companies. There are other private companies that operate commuter rail lines, such as Tokyu (which played a major role in the development of Shibuya as well as suburban areas in Yokohama such as Tama Plaza), Odakyu, Keio, and Keikyu. The subway lines tend to be publicly-owned, however, such as the Tokyo Metro subway system, the Toei subway system, and the Yokohama Municipal Subway. Many of these subway lines seamlessly flow into privately-owned and operated lines from the companies previously mentioned; for example, the Tokyu Den-en-Toshi line, which connects the suburban areas of Machida and Yokohama to Shibuya, becomes the Tokyo Metro Hanzomon Line once it reaches Shibuya.

Many of the private train companies have other businesses. For example, Tokyu Group (https://tokyugroup.jp/en) operates many companies, such as department stores (including the famous Shibuya 109), hotels, grocery stores, and even a hospital. Tokyu used to own a fantastic chain of stores called Tokyu Hands, which is hard to classify but sells a variety of goods, but Tokyu sold it a few years ago.

It's important to note that private companies in Japan didn't always function as fully independent entities from the government (obviously there is going to be rent-seeking as almost always happens), there is a pretty complicated history of post ww2 industrial + government growth that had some form of public good (or social contract whichever you prefer) baked into it.

It's interesting that you mention it was privatized in 1987, which corresponds to the economic bubble that was happening from 1986 to 1991, which burst leaving a so called "lost generation" of people growing up in basically stagnation. And from what I understand the Japanese economy is still not the rocket ship it once was..

JNR failed mostly because it was struggling from high construction debts of Shinkansen and urban rail projects. One important part of the privatization was that the government took on this debt load to unshackle the newly private companies.

Also this hasn’t happened evenly. Of the seven private JRs, one (Kyushu) is treading water and three are losing money (Hokkaido, Shikoku and Freight)

> One important part of the privatization was that the government took on this debt load to unshackle the newly private companies.

Which certainly in some accounting systems be seen as a bailout or form of government support for these newly privatized companies, which the government probably wouldn't do if they didn't see these rail lines as a form of public good (or at least necessity).

I think another user mentioned a little down in this thread that there is a network of mutually supportive companies that are built out along the tracks, shops, hotels, restaurants, all of which benefit from the rail lines supplying customers, and in turn benefit the rail line by providing reasons to use their services outside of a strict A -> B commute.

I wonder if location/population has anything to do with both Kyushu and Hokkaido finding themselves in financial trouble.

Idk, it seems like fairly straightforward from a smooth-brained layman's non-politician perspective (mine), hey people we have a choice: we get clean on time trains where you can grab a cheap cheesesteak on you way back from work, or we get mobile homeless shelters that drop you off next to the needle exchange van in Berkeley

The other important bits to have functioning rail is that

* Japanese highways are heavily tolled and parking in choice areas is expensive. In the US parking is mandated at such high levels that it is given away for free; in Japan parking is entirely market provided and you cannot buy a car without proof of a reserved space which you must purchase

* Japanese commuting is heavily subsidized to the tune of 100,000JPY a month pretax, so consumers have more spending power specifically on transportation. This is at least one of the theorized causes of Japanese economic centralization since you can’t realize the full value of the benefit outside the megacities.

> Japanese highways are heavily tolled

As an example. For me to get to the nearest large city, it's a 4 hour drive, 7000 yen in highway tolls and around 3000 yen in gas. Or a 2 hour Shinkansen ride for 9000 yen. If you're a solo businessman the choice is a no-brainer. If you're traveling with the family, then you're still gonna drive.

> Japanese highways are heavily tolled and parking in choice areas is expensive. In the US parking is mandated at such high levels that it is given away for free; in Japan parking is entirely market provided and you cannot buy a car without proof of a reserved space which you must purchase

this is because of the efficacy of public transport working for most of the populous, getting a car isn't the worst thing in the world, but you need to be able to pay for it, show insurance, whatever. Also don't be a foreigner who can't speak Japanese. Basic rules.

eh, this is the cart before the horse.

the US had public frequent transit systems at the turn of the century. the problem was they couldn't compete with brand new free Interstates. It's hard to compete with free.

This issue was compounded by the death of streetcar lines across America, being replaced with buses. In Tokyo some of these streetcar lines evolved into subway and train lines. For example, the stretch of the modern Tokyu Den-en-Toshi Line that goes from Shibuya to Futakotamagawa (where Rakuten’s global headquarters are located) replaced the old Tokyu Tamagawa Line, which was a streetcar line.

In an alternate universe, Los Angeles’ once-extensive streetcar system, which I believe was operated by private companies (though I could be wrong), could’ve been upgraded to become an extensive train and subway system. I believe the company that built the streetcar connecting Los Angeles with Pasadena also developed real estate along the route to encourage the use of the streetcar. This is exactly Tokyu’s business model; Tokyu played a major role in the development of “garden suburbs” influenced by the garden city movement of the early 1900s: first with the Den-en-Chofu neighborhood of Tokyo in the 1920s (which is served by the Tokyu Toyoko Line), and then with the development of Tama Den-en-Toshi (Tama Garden Cities) in once-rural parts of Kawasaki and Yokohama beginning in the 1960s. Of course, a crucial difference between the original garden city concept versus Tokyu’s implementation of it is that Tokyu’s garden suburbs are generally not job centers; while there are plenty of service jobs there, the majority of good-paying professional jobs are located in the city center (such as near Shibuya Station, which conveniently is heavily influenced by Tokyu), hence contributing to Tokyo’s legendary train congestion.

One major difference is that the streetcar companies in the US sold the land whereas Japanese companies held on to the choicest parcels to self-develop.

This meant that 50 years later when everything was at end of life, the streetcar companies could not repeat the trick.

Yep! It was a pretty scammy system.

In NA effectively the streetcars were a scheme to sell real estate, with the streetcar being the sweetener to convince people to buy into the neighbourhood.

Once sales were over the streetcar was then a pointless drag on profits. No surprise unscrupulous business persons cut back on maintenance and abandoned the "unprofitable" streetcars.

The issue with the la streetcar network was that it was designed specifically to sell Henry Huntington’s land tracts. Once he sold that off he didn’t much care if the remaining transit network could actually stand on its own two legs. Some lines were frequent like downtown lines but these days there are a lot of interlining busses going downtown where you really could have multiple busses a minute coming in on a street. Other lines were a lot worse than today like the line that connected santa monica to LA, which eventually only ran once a day in contrast to todays expo line running every 8 minutes or so.

Well for context, outside of an EZ pass, it costed me about 7$ each way to get from Oakland(hills) to Foster City roughly each way, and I had to drive my own car. And for reference, we call them freeways ;) legacy i know.

I mean, parking in this lot in Chiyoda is 400JPY for 20 minutes. https://www.parkme.com/en-gb/lot/275008/-tokyo-japan

That's a significantly higher parking rate than I've ever seen charged in the US. And generally in Japan street parking is not permitted in busy areas.

Not a comment, but a request for clarification: I'm losing the thread of the conversation here: is the choice between free transit and non-free transit?

(I think that guess is wrong, which is why I'm asking... "free vs non-free" is a useless dichotomy when there are plenty of ways to charge people fares, some more profit-extracting than other, and when I live in a town with a paid system where homeless people surf in the buses all day because it's the only way to get to the few places to use the bathroom...)

Is that why the name changed to simply Hands. Makes sense but I hadn't realized the company was sold. I haven't noticed it affect the stores in any way yet.

Yes, once Tokyu sold Tokyu Hands the store dropped the Tokyu name. I also haven’t noticed any changes in terms of product selection or customer service, with the caveat that I’m a tourist who goes to Japan 2-3 times per year, not a resident, so there may be changes I’m unaware of.

Most commuter train lines in Japan are part of integrated conglomerates of complementary businesses. JR East, which runs the Yamanote Line, also operates shopping malls, hotels, gyms, and other retail facilities at and near their stations. Many suburban lines, such as Tokyu and Hankyu, also have large real estate businesses along the train lines. The rail lines make the businesses more accessible, and the businesses boost rail usage. That symbiotic profitability has developed over many decades and would be very difficult to create from scratch.

If you look at the actual profit numbers, these companies are better described as real estate companies that also run train lines (which bring people to the real estate properties, making those properties much more valuable).

During 18+ years of working at a Japanese company in Tokyo, my train fare to and from work was paid with a pass from the company. This was true for all our employees, and other companies offered the same perk to their employees.

The pass was free and good for travel at any time along that route.

That’s called a 定期券 and you can buy that yourself if you want to save some yen on your commute, though it’s only really worth it if you’re going between the stations most weekdays consistently.

IT's irrational to argue that free transit is why CA transit is so bad, given that it's not free now.

The funding mechanisms are different. LA metro gets a lot of funding from sales tax initiatives. Iirc the farebox only covers like 5% of the operating budget and the median rider is making less than like $25k which is why they were considering making it free.

What makes you associate free transit with "trying to kill transit"?

Not OP, but somebody still has to pay for the transit. And a "free" service is politically much more vulnerable than one that is partly being paid for by the users because it involves taxes and redistribution. It adds pressure for each (annual) budget discussion.

That "politically vulnerable" point is good. Almost all public transit ends up heavily subsidized, so the argument for free is that it's not a huge difference, and it reduces the costs involved in collecting fees / enforcement etc. But yeah, it's easier for political winds to blow against it.

It is generally not a huge difference in small systems like you find in college towns.

It is a pretty substantial portion of most major transit agency budgets; BART for example has a farebox recovery of about a third. If you were to totally make it free you would need to basically increase the other sources of funding by 50%.

LA metro fairbox recovery is like 5% fwiw. Look up median income levels too on that system and you might be inclined to slash fares.

the argument has always been, is it better to spend that 5% on making it free, or is it better to spend that on making services more useful so that people actually switch to it?

The cost is not really the reason LA Metro ridership is so low and farebox recovery is so low.

I'd add that it wouldn't be so outlandish to assume that any superficially and widely agreeable movement might just be astroturfing, considering how cheap and easy it is to persuade people in general, but also specifically by making them think everyone else feels the same, and how often the arguments just parrot whatever the various internet personalities happen to be saying about it without any additional insight.

Japanese trains are de facto free for many users as employers are de facto required to pay their employees' train commute costs. So I don't know what bizarre mental leap you're making here, or why you're focusing on cost in the first place.

> I frequently travel to Hong Kong and I moved to California from London and so I looked them up and they hadn't transformed to free either.

Try going to Luxembourg sometime.

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