Comment by floatrock | Hacker News Reader

Comment by floatrock | Hacker News Reader

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This article is dishonest about the level of privatization in the JR's.

Yes, they're private companies, and they do diversification like investing in real estate around their rail cooridors to grow towns and grab people looking to do some shopping in their adjacent department store as passengers are walking through the stations. This is transit-oriented development at its best. (Also, ask google why land property lines in the US western states often look like big checkerboards)

But there's no mention of the Japan Railway Construction, Transport and Technology Agency (JRTT). That's the government entity that builds many new Shinkansen lines. It then leases them to the JR companies at a fixed rate for 30 years. This keeps massive construction costs off the private companies' balance sheets.

Or when they do need large capital spends, there's no mention of the Fiscal Investment and Loan Program (FILP) which provides loans in the form of low-interest credit backed by government guarantees. Their creditors are effectively lending to the Japaneese government, not the JR company.

Is that kind of system really privatized? It's hybridized at best, and it shows that you really need government support of some sort to push country-scale infrastructure like this forward. Sorry free-market absolutists.

It is not at all dishonest to talk about their privatization.

It’s dishonest to hand wave it away while pretending that because there are government controls for construction and financing that it would go even better if it was more government or “more hybridized”. With no source, just opinion.

No one that has ever had to switch blue to red to green in toyko just cash, buying a new ticket at each stop only to go a couple miles, has ever forgotten how privatized Japans railways are.

I expected to see comments about how good it is, how most people love it, how it’s highly privatized, and of course about how to make it better with more government.

You misunderstand me... I'm not saying the privatization is a bad thing, handwaving it away, or saying lets throw government at it. I'm merely pointing out that in a 4,000 word essay trying to explain all the factors that let Japan have such a good railway system, there's a huge amount of emphasis on the privatization part, and zero mention of all the public sector subsidies that enable the entire system.

It's fine to talk about the efficiency of the private operators. No problem there. The dishonesty is in omitting any discussion of how the tracks that the whole system depends are built with heavy government support. Without that, one could be forgiven for reading that article and thinking "oh, just privatize it and you'll be as successful as Japan."

I think the take-away here should be more along the lines of what a working public-private partnership can look like and what roles each can play. I'd love to see a 4,000-word article that compares this model to the regional transit authority models we have in the US.

Did you miss this paragraph? They do talk about the subsidies from the national and prefectural governments.

> Carefully designed public subsidies also play a useful role. Although Japanese railways do not receive subsidies for day-to-day operations, they do receive government loans and grants for capital investments. These are typically tied to public priorities, such as disability access or earthquake-proofing, or to projects that have large spillovers that the railway company would be unable to internalize, like removing level crossings, or elevating at-grade railways or trams in order to reduce road congestion and accident risk. Generally, the local prefectural government will match the contribution of the national government. Larger new build projects are subject to lease back or debt-payment conditions that fare revenue is expected to pay back.

Unless this was added after the fact, I think this is mostly an issue of careful reading. To me, the article absolutely says that it's a hybridized system like you mention.

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