The Guardian:
The Greater Tokyo Metropolitan Area, composed of four prefectures, became the world’s pre-eminent megalopolis – some 35 million people by 2010, or 27% of Japan’s total population. It isn’t unusual for commuters to spend two hours getting to work every day on trains that exceed 150% of capacity.
When I was in Tokyo, one of the things I wanted to see and take pictures of was the Shinkansen bullet train. It’s a shame we don’t have the population densities to make these trains possible here in North America.
While I’m envious of bullet trains, I am definitely not envious of the population densities. Visiting family in Seoul a couple weeks every half a decade is quite enough for me.
Agreed. It was exciting being in Tokyo but I can see how dealing with that population densities could be exhausting day in and day out.
the world’s number one problem for the last hundred years and going forward one hundred years will be population density.
Not dense enough? Define density.
I don’t have any envy for their population density, but I do wish I lived in a country that still believes in keeping its public infrastructure modern and maintained.
Ok, I also envy the vast amount of good food you can get delivered at a whim, at all hours of the day.
but Shinkansen ticket cost is like a plane ticket.
No way a commoner could do that.
Tokyo also have a lot of local metro trains that extends to surrounding
satellite town and burbs. for example you can take a train from yakuska to Norita airport.
without changing trains and taking hour and half or something.
That’s the problem I guess, without the population density, it gets prohibitively expensive to maintain, let alone update infrastructure. NYC, you have no excuse.
We may not have bullet trains, but we’ve got Wyoming, Montana, Alberta, and British Columbia. I’m good with that.
Tack on NJ to NYC if you want a seedier example of a state government that cancels a much-needed, major tunnel project but uses the funds to cover its budget deficits anyway.
I would rather not have the populations, even if it means no trains.
Shawn, the train looks awfully cool, and I definitely want to ride one, but count me out when it comes to hoping for an increase in our population density. Things are bad enough on the freeways in Los Angeles as it is!
Criticisms aside (please!), California High-Speed Rail is proceeding in its plan to provide high speed rail between the SF Bay Area, Los Angeles, and eventually Sacramento and San Diego.
What’s most shocking, IMHO, is the lack of anything other than Acela Express in the U.S. northeast corridor, where the population density should be easily enough to support more high speed trains. The average speed of Acela Express is also so low that it doesn’t even count as “high speed” when measured city-to-city.
The hope of higher density cities is that there would be fewer people on the highways. More would live close to where they work and shop, and those that do commute would come in on trains or other mass transit. Contrast L.A. with New York.
That’s the hope, anyway, but I don’t think it’s realistic for a country as vast as the US.
But imagine if that train was taking you the same distance as a plain.
Bullet trains from say LA to Seattle or LA to Saint Louis and then on to NYC. They could be used to link major cities with smaller trains for the areas around those.
And if major cities would develop decent subway and bus systems, it could reduce the need for cars and cut back on traffic.
That was one thing about living in London that was nice, I could get around very easily without driving. Coming back to LA was painful because of the utter lack of a decent system
These bullet trains only work with huge population densities, and huge population densities aren’t particularly compatible with a decent quality of life. Nobody I know wants to take 2 hours to get to work, just for the pleasure of riding a really fast train while doing so.