Why Japan has such good railways
by RickJWagner on 4/18/2026, 12:29:06 PM
https://worksinprogress.co/issue/why-japan-has-such-good-railways/
Comments
by: ttul
“Japan’s liberal land use regulation makes it straightforward to build new neighborhoods next to railway lines, giving commuters easy access to city centers. It also enables the densification of these centers, which means that commuters have more places they want to go.”<p>This is the most important paragraph in the article. It can’t be overstated how ingenious Japan’s system of zoning is and how much this has benefitted their society in ways we can only dream about here in the West.
4/18/2026, 2:50:32 PM
by: kemiller
This is a great article, but I think it’s hard to ignore that Japan’s culture of harmony is a big part of why they were able to choose sensible regulations that benefitted everyone. We struggle to pass even the most sensible land use reforms because entrenched interests want to remain entrenched even if it hurts the system overall.
4/18/2026, 2:55:15 PM
by: SeanLuke
It's generally regarded that Hong Kong has the best subway in the world. There are many reasons for this, but one cannot be overstated: Hong Kong's geography. A huge portion of the city consists of long thin urban corridors sandwiched between mountains and the sea. As a result, Hong Kong need concentrate its funding on only a few subway lines to support a huge portion of the population.<p>This good article aside, I wonder if the same thing is true about Japan when we're talking about long-distance trains. Compared to France or Germany, Japan is basically a stick. A very large chunk of the populace lies on a single train line running from Kagoshima up to Hakodate, running through Fukuoka, Hiroshima, Osaka, Kyoto, Yokohama, Tokyo, Sendai, etc. So you can slap a single bullet train line there and service all of them.
4/18/2026, 2:27:16 PM
by: amazingamazing
the railways are excellent, but it's funny. I was <i>just</i> in Kyoto and saw flyers seemingly at every single temple opposing the Hokuriku Shinkansen extension. apparently this type of opposition has always existed (I looked at the history of trains in Japan and originally most Japanese did NOT want it at all because they thought it looked really ugly), like nimbys in USA, but such decisions are apparently federalized according to some Japanese nationals I spoke to, so the nimbys have no power.<p>USA should do the same (well, the current federal government is volatile to say, the least, but in general I think it'd be improvement).
4/18/2026, 1:25:11 PM
by: ChrisMarshallNY
I love the Japanese rail system. I am retired, now, so don't travel there, anymore, but I always used to cry, after coming back to the US, and getting on LIRR trains.<p>The most amazing thing, is how on-time they are, and how <i>precise</i> their stops are. They have marks on the platform, showing exactly where the doors will open (Protip: Don't stand directly in front of the doors, when they open). I hear that this is the result of <i>human</i> drivers; not robots. Apparently, engineer training in Japan is pretty intense.
4/18/2026, 1:41:56 PM
by: jmull
I’d think Japan being a long, skinny, population dense country has to help. There’s just more potential in every km of rail laid.
4/18/2026, 2:15:23 PM
by: signorovitch
Japan also has amazing car infrastructure too! Last time I was there visiting family in the mountains, I was quite impressed by the number and quality of tunnels and spiral ramps. The highways are similarly privatized, with tolls like train fares reducing the need for government subsidies.
4/18/2026, 1:54:02 PM
by: zdw
Dupe of <a href="https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47677481">https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47677481</a>
4/18/2026, 1:27:15 PM
by: floatrock
This article is dishonest about the level of privatization in the JR's.<p>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)<p>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.<p>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.<p>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.
4/18/2026, 2:23:53 PM
by: rwmj
In the West some private equity company would be buying these up, selling off the land and separate businesses, and screwing the rail passengers for all they can, until the whole thing sinks in a sea of debt. Then repeating the formula.
4/18/2026, 2:13:15 PM
by: newyankee
The good thing that happened seems to be that China has essentially 10xed the Japan railways template. I wonder how bad a car centric China would've had been.
4/18/2026, 1:24:40 PM
by: cebert
Japan has some of the best infrastructure anywhere. It will be interesting to see if they can keep it that way with their population changing and becoming more geriatric.
4/18/2026, 2:08:13 PM
by: mvvl
one thing worth pointing out is that the legacy private railways work because they were never nationalized and had decades to quietly buy up land around stations before it was worth anything. That's really hard to replicate from scratch. This model is great in dense cities but even Japan is still struggling with rural lines
4/18/2026, 2:39:11 PM
by: tjpnz
In Japan there's a cross party political consensus that public transport projects are a net positive for society. That's important when you have work which could take a decade or more to complete - the Chuo maglev project for instance will be complete when my kids are approaching adulthood and they're still not in primary school. I often wonder what we might be able to do in New Zealand (where I'm from) if we had the money and population to support it. But then I remember that one of the two major political parties always cancels or scales back anything ongoing which is public transport related, every single time they're elected, so nothing ever gets done.
4/18/2026, 2:29:19 PM
by: epolanski
I've been in Kyushu, in the south.<p>Japanese railways are indeed amazing, but it should be pointed out that peripheral routes are being dismissed everywhere in the country side, often isolating people and killing places.<p>Infrastructure is also dated in many places.<p>It's not a criticism to Japan, I think they are just facing the fact that many people move to the cities and the country is on a population decline as well.<p>They are facing this very masterfully.
4/18/2026, 2:10:48 PM
by: andrewstuart
Countries like Japan seem to make policy that serves the people.<p>Other countries decisions serve politicians, corporates, the rich, and maybe possibly finally, the citizens.<p>Here in Melbourne a city of 5 million people we don’t have a train from the airport to the city despite decades of political talk about it. But why not? Because the Airport Coporation makes vast unfathomable profit on car parking. What’s most important? Just look around.
4/18/2026, 1:40:57 PM
by: skl3977
[dead]
4/18/2026, 2:41:16 PM
by: journal
Because they have bad something else.
4/18/2026, 1:51:27 PM