Sign up to Nebula for only $30 per year! go.nebula.tv/notjustbikes Watch this video ad-free on Nebula: nebula.tv/videos/notjustbikes-i-visited-the-worlds-busiest-train-station Watch Life Where I'm From, "How Tokyo's Subway Keeps On-time, Clean, and Safe": Nebula: nebula.tv/videos/lifewhereimfrom-how-tokyos-subway-keeps-on-time-clean-and-safe?ref=notjustbikes RUclips: ruclips.net/video/ZT6H_XMDm7s/видео.html
As a Norwegian (from a country of 5 million-ish people), the idea of three million people passing through a single rail station daily is just mind-blowing to me.
Shinjuku is not a single station, though. It's principally 5 stations by 3 railway companies and 2 subway companies side by side or on top of one another. That's the secret sauce, in that a lot of people has to transfer lines here.
At least they are trying. The number of transit projects under construction in greater Los Angeles is insane, with an even larger batch in various levels of planning and pre-construction. The last few years have had about one project open each year and there should be three or four opening next year (nothing much really in 2024 though). Existing lines are getting more service too.
Especially when you consider that even a modest 4-lane highway cutting through the middle of a city can completely destroy all of the street life around it (especially the exits). Nothing beats trains for mass transportation in and out of a city.
When we were to Tokyo on an excursion at University, one of the places we visited was the Toshiba Science Museum, where they had an exhibit showing how the ticket machines work. The crazy part about them is that you would sometimes have to use more than one paper ticket, and regardless of how you insert the tickets, they come out in the same order, oriented the same way. They're an absolute marvel of engineering.
I've always been irritated how slow fare gates are, forcing you to break stride. If Shinjuku gates are that fast, there's no excuse for gates everywhere not to be that fast.
Gates are fast all over Japan, it's not just a Shinjuku thing. They react almost instantaneously and it's been that way for a long time. So it's really frustrating that fare gates, even here in the Netherlands, can take a second or two to respond.
They use different technology than most of the transportation cards (with a notable exception of Hong Kong) actually. Sony FeliCa is quite known for fast transaction time. I guess most countries choose NXP Mifare for cheaper prices but I'm not sure.
This is because of FeliCa, the NFC standard used in Japan's IC transit cards. JR fare gates actually have an operational requirement of 60 people per minute... this is the reason why open-loop payment is actually not the solution here in Japan - bank cards simply don't have good enough technology in them. Credit/debit EMV taps take ~500ms and the transaction begins from 4cm away, while FeliCa taps (used by Japan's IC cards like Suica) begin from 10cm and only take 100ms, allowing for much much higher passenger throughput. It's pretty crazy!
When I first arrived in japan a few months ago for a 2 week vacation, I was absolutely lost, tired and had no working cellphone yet along with my luggage but the people who I approached for help were so kind. I accidentally entered the wrong train line so the station assistants let me pass through free to fix my mistake after saying where I needed to get to. Then I had trouble understanding which platform I needed to be on to go in the right direction so I asked a man who did not speak English, he kindly went up the stairs with me to show me the platform I needed despite him waiting for his own train which was arriving very soon. Many times throughout my vacation my heart was warmed by interactions like this. I was at the arcades and a fellow next to me gave me all of his extra Kancolle cards along with a special English one saying she spoke enough just like me and he had a big warm smile as he explained to me. Then at the super market a little old lady laughed and told me that I’m so tall, I could grab anything off any high shelf unlike her. I’m definitely visiting again next year
I was in japan a few months ago too but i was a traveller helping another traveller, I was mid sentence explaining which platform his train is in when my train suddenly arrives, and my friend just dragged me in the train. Although i left so hastily he was still nice enough to wave me a goodbye. I feel so bad for not being able to help that guy, but the next train is probably after 20mins. I still feel bad for that poor guy.🥲
I think the importance of 'little' things like the quick gates or the markings on the ground telling you where to go and where to stand in line can't be understated. Just goes to show the people responsible for this know how people move and what causes the flow of motion to stock.
It's all incremental improvements over time, with a lot of public input as well. For example, the system where you get on specific cars so that you exit closest to your exits were devised by a group of commuting housewives, not from some top-down policy.
The big one that stood out to me was the "stand here to get on, people getting off will go through here" thing. Absurdly simple, and makes onboarding and offboarding so much easier, and it's just a bit of paint on the ground and some acculturation time to get used to it. I can't believe Toronto hasn't done it yet...
@@hypotheticalaxolotl Unfortunately, it wouldn't work elsewhere. It works well in Japan because of their mindset. People generally obey signs and instructions, without even thinking about it. It's natural, normal behaviour. If you tried to implement the same thing in London - for example - people would largely ignore the markings, then start loud arguments with others that were, causing greater chaos than the current anarchic boarding.
I laughed when you said the construction would be finished in 2047 -- then I cried when I realized that here in the USA construction on such a project would be STARTING in 2047.
15:43 Not here in Japan. High-speed roads have some of the highest tolls in the world. They're supposed to be removed whenever the roads are fully paid off, but the date for that keeps getting pushed back. Traveling cross-country via car is significantly more expensive than flying.
And the roads aren't even high speed. You can go 80km/h most of the time, sometimes 100km/h. The toll is around 3 times the basic fare train ticket. I've driven twice on the meishin expressway going 80km/h whilst being overtaken by a shinkansen doing 285km/h..
@@ic5889 Highways are not profitable. If anything I'd assume they keep the tolls because they know the highways would go into a huge deficit the moment the tolls were removed.
The thing I love so much about Japanese infrastructure is that it opened my eyes to how old infrastructure can both work well and feel good to use. Corridors built in the 70s and 80s have changed only a little, but because they’ve been kept clean and been given lighting improvements, they feel nice to walk through. The London Underground, meanwhile, often feels cramped, dirty and poorly lit, even in modern stations built in the 90s. A little TLC goes a long way.
So glad you included Eggslut. -Tokyo does have night busses but they aren't very well known.- A taxi from Shibuya to Shinjuku would less than 2000 yen The change between rail companies doesn't matter to us, everyone either has a regular pass for their commute or just use e-money like Suica and Pasmo, the computer work out the fare. Edited: the night bus system was discountinued in 2022.
Japanese folks are the biggest egg sluts on planet earth. From raw egg and rice to some of their omelettes, it is a country that loves eggs way too much
7:25 in my past decade of living here, I think I’ve only seen the train pushers about a handful of times. They only appear at rush hours on heavy commuter lines (like the Saitama-to-Tokyo Saikyo line of the Chiba-to-Tokyo Keiyo line). From what I’ve heard and personally seen, they most often appear in the winter, when people’s puffy coats allow for some compression without injuring everyone involved. So while they do exist, they have become much rarer. I would also like to add that a noteworthy change that made Tokyo’s rush hour much better was companies allowing for later starting hours, which staggered the rush hour between students (6-8) and workers (8-10) who commute. After the pandemic, the rush hour was further reduced with flexible hours and remote works becoming more mainstreamed. So a lot of little things went into making this system what it is today. And (as of right not) I wouldn’t want to live anywhere else.
@@DaDoubleDee It's surprisingly easy and smooth as long as you have a valid reason for immigration - basically either be married to a Japanese person, or have your visa sponsored by a Japanese employer. Japanese bureaucracy, while there is a lot of it, is generally pretty smooth to navigate and most public servants are actually trying to help you do things right, unlike in Europe where it often feels like they're instructed to find any reason to deny as many applications as possible. When I moved to Japan on a spouse visa, the process took about 5 weeks and there were not many hoops to jump through. For comparison, when me and my wife moved back to my home country 10 years later, the wait time for her visa was 7 months (which was lucky - some people wait 2-3 years), plus there were a whole bunch of hoops to jump through like having to provide proof of adequately sized housing and adequately paid employment before applying. (A bit of a catch-22 having to have a house and a job in the country potentially several years before you can actually move there.)
Just adding to this that Japan is also launching a Digital Nomad visa so you can potentially also move without having to be hired by a Japanese company which, given the weakness of the yen, is potentially a good path to go down.
If anyone noticed like I did @1:40 a Japanese man pulling a luggage wheel is wearing a band t-shirt called "Issues" which is a metalcore band I was heavily into from 2012 to about 2020 when they broke up. They weren't super huge, but it's crazy to see someone in Japan heard about them! Crazy and cool and random fact of the day :)
I live in Hokkaido and one thing I really like here is that most major train stations are also shopping malls (and even a bunch of smaller stations are connected to a small one). It makes so much more sense than then being plopped way outside the city. Also something I've noticed is that supermarkets are often mini-shopping malls themselves, at least up here most of them will have a scattering of other small shops within the building.
My wife and I just got back from our honeymoon where we spent a lot of time in-and-out of Shinjuku. While there's lots of people coming and going, you wouldn't believe its around 3 millions people per day because of how smoothly everything operates there. Much, MUCH better than what we have here in Melbourne.
@@conor7154 you should make it so your responses on videos are hidden mate. You're clearly very unwell in how you respond to people. I hope you learn how to socialise and get the help you need 😂
@@conor7154 His insight appears correct to me. I've been living in Japan for more than twenty years, and have been through Shinjuku station many hundreds of times. (It's not one I use regularly, though it's not significantly different from any other large station in Tokyo.)
You are the absolute king of urbanism on RUclips! The "gym of life", these are your greatest words. My grandpa lived a healthy life till the age of 98, because he walked everywhere. He wasn't an athlete, but he also wasn't a driver. Driving kills you, just like alcohol or smoking. I recently moved with my wife to a place, where I can easily walk to the next metro station (1,2 km) and it has made my life 100x better. I can still drive wherever I want, but I don't commute to work by car anymore.
Comparing driving to drinking or smoking might be the most moronic neoliberal brained idea anyone on this channel has had. You’re literally the reason people upload completions of cyclists being ran over.
@@douchopotamus3755 yeah that guy has been writing on lots of comments on varying videos. Check his comment history, there's something clearly wrong with him.
@@conor7154 I mean, ask any doctor about a sedentary lifestyle. It's probably one of the worst things you can do to your heart, and car dependency is a major contributor to it.
If anyone wondered, the sign at 14:23 that won't let you have any fun said: 🚫No smoking 🚫No open flames 🚫No littering 🚫No dangerous goods 🚫No assembly without permission 🚫No unauthorized selling 🚫No distribution of flyers of similar, and No speech 🚫No excessive noise 🚫No riding motorcycles or bicycles 🚫No skateboards or radio-controlled or ball playing 🚫Do not enter in flowering plants 🚫Do not lie down 🚫It will ban the act to be a nuisance to other customers
I can highly recommend the book Emergent Tokyo: Designing the Spontaneous City. While not transport focused, it really helps to shine a light on how the city (and cities in Japan in general) developed differently than American/European cities and what makes them so special.
@Praisethesunson That's certainly part of it. But also regulations and the fact that Tokyo is not a city, but a conglomerate of cities. Each City (i.e. Shinjuku, Shibuya etc.) was allowed to develop into their own identity. Also, Shinjuku was a few years ago basically farmland, water treatment and single family homes. This was after WWII. The development into this extremy busy (and still liveable) hub happened more recently (iirc 80s/90s) in a few years. It is a prime example that change or even a completly new city and transport system can be build very fast and doesn't need to be developed out of centuries of existing stuff, as it is usually the case in europe. Just to add, the concept of vertical public spaces is also fascinating coming from europe, even though it is not that unique in the Asian region.
Regarding most profits being real estate: the real estate that the JR companies own has a high value exactly because it owns the land near a lot of the stations. This means that a lot of the value and profits of their real estate business is exactly because they also keep the transit system running. Neglecting the transit business would also cause them to make less money with real estate.
Right, people and businesses will pay more rent to be located next to train stations, it's much more fair for that to go to the train company than to random landowners who just got lucky. And it's a source of transit funding that *nobody minds* and hardly anyone notices. The only alternatives are higher fares or government subsidies. Honestly, I wish every transit agency was set up like that. A major funding source without having to have political fights over fares or taxes? Excellent.
That's reasoning is far too community minded for a company. Why run the train at a loss when you can just sell it back to the government so they can do the unprofitable bit of getting people to your business?
I visited Tokyo Disneyland the other day and at the end of the day, thousands of people started exiting the park at the same time. I was ready for 1 hr+ delay to get home based on how it’s like in the US. Incredibly, on every train arrival, massive crowds on the platform were cleared. I arrived home without any delay. Yes the train was packed, but the ability to travel like there is zero traffic at any given peak hours is incredible.
when I visited, there was inclement weather (rain and high wind speeds) so while we had the same problem of big crowds gathering, trains were only coming maybe once every 20 minutes due to weather delays, since the rail bridges above the rivers are so exposed. We ended up changing our route to get in a train going the other direction than planned because it was so crowded and the wait was so long. It took us an hour to get back to our hotel in ryogoku that couldn’t have been more than 30 minutes away normally.
@@thatotherguy3348Well there was a severe snowstorm in Toronto and the entire highway was blocked and caused crazy traffic jam… They had to wait entire night for snow to clear up so they can finally reach home by the next afternoon… I remember this happened in January 2022…
As a german guy with half of my family working in the german train/rail system let me just say that an effective system requires effective people. That means, among other things, following the rules and showing courtesy, which is where most countries will fail. For example in Germany the biggest factor contributing to late (local) trains are the people. Blocking closing doors, breaking windows, emptying fire extinguishers during the ride, beggars that sleep and relief themselves in the train, people beating each other up, going along the train tracks, etc. all just contribute a fraction to the problem but in the great sum its just a big shit sandwich. We have open train stations, so there are no gates which just invites trouble + its impossible to monitor / secure in its entirety. The track is also above ground which breaks when the temperature is either too low or too hot. I've been to Japan 2 times and enjoyed traveling the country by train. When I came back to Germany, even though the train was 10x less packed than in Japan, yet it felt more uncomfortable. Its crazy what common courtesy / consideration of the people around you can accomplish. So yea, just my 2 cents.
"That means, among other things, following the rules and showing courtesy, which is where most countries will fail." I looked at the fare gates in Shinjuku and they would be ineffective in Washington DC where I am since it appears so easy to go through/under/over them. Fare evasion is a huge problem here so Metro is installing new gates and fences that require actively fare evaders to climb over rather than merely step over and yet some young men do that too. There is no shame for them. Now with the new gates, people will try and follow close behind you as you exit; two people attempted to slide through with me last week but I stopped as soon as I got past the gate and allowed it to close, then shouted at them to get their own ticket. Fortunately, neither of them shot me which is always a potential problem here; someone was shot in this same station last year (Potomac Avenue).
I'm Austrian and I hate fare gates. They are inconvenient, slow you down if you're in a rush, make you get out your card/wallet/phone/whatever the ticket is on way too often which opens you up to theft or just accidentally dropping things and losing them. They also cost money to operate that could be spent on employing actual humans if you insist on checking tickets, although I would argue a society has more to gain from some people evading the fares but 99% of people in a city regularly taking public transit than the alternative. I think the "issue" of homeless people sleeping in metro or train stations is better solved by following a housing-first approach to homelessness, I don't think these people are there by choice. Also free and clean public restrooms were rightfully pointed out as being bascially non-existant in Europe. I would concur that some people are not very considerate when they are in public here, but for the most part it's fine, and I vastly prefer our gateless metro and train system in Vienna over the alternative.
I didn't see any of that in Germany and the trains were late, always, super late. German train system is abysmal, and it's quite the shock given the reputation for German efficiency. It'd be like going to the UK and finding out people can't queue properly.
As a Dutch person who has been to Shinjuku station thanks for reaffirming that going there multiple times you can still get lost. When I go abroad I can always get the hang of public transport within a week but Sinjuku station is a special place. Cant wait to visit Tokyo again. Beautiful content as always!
This brings back memories, I stayed near Shinjuku during my first visit to Tokyo and am delighted how much of the station and its surroundings I can remember. That stay by Shinjuku was totally eye opening for me, traveling in and around this area just bustling with so many people, so much urban fabric/things to do, so much transit, and with it all all flowing so smoothly. Especially coming from a continent where 6 trains a day is considered high frequency. While the SUICA cards were nice, I agree that the lack of integration (often meaning paying multiple times along a journey) was a bit of a bummer. Great overview, and I love Tomoyuki Tanaka’s drawing of the station! Also, love the delayed "of 2047." If only any transit project was as forward thinking over here!
I’m one of 3 million that pass through here every day! I transfer between 2 different train companies (Keio and JR Yamanote) and it’s packed all the time but very smooth. There’s a direct transfer gate that switches me between the two with just one tap. It’s a great station with areas I still have yet to discover
Hey that's my route when I lived in Inagi and Chofu! If you stay long enough, you'll get to have a much better ride after they finish grade separating between Sasazuka and Sengawa. Unfortunately, I've been stuck on a train that hit a person at a street crossing 3 times over 4 years living around there.
Living in Japan, the great thing about this is that it acts as a feeder for various parts of the city. I think it's really cool how so many different companies control the trains, so you can have friends from odakyu coming from the east or people taking JR, etc. I think this strategy of making hundreds of rail companies instead of just one like in most other places is what really drives Japanese rail innovation as well
Car friendliness in Tokyo is quite surprising to me. Tokyo used to have lots of canals but many were either filled in or covered with highways. Tokyo also had lots of trams but these were taken out when they built subways, and replaced with car lanes. There's also many times when I had to wait to cross a street that had literally no traffic because Japan really cares about jaywalking, while their traffic lights remain kinda dumb.
Yup, it's like that everywhere here. Traffic light frequently stop large amounts of people so a handful of cars can go. There's a light right between the bike parking and the train station where I live. It's awful
watching this channel as an american is deeply painful, the rest of the world looks so vibrant and full of life and everything here is just dead, nothingness
As a french, i have the stereotype that new york and a bit of chicago SF the beaches of LA and maybe miami are full but the rest of the US is empty or mostly empty, no idea if it’s true
I think it's a matter of space and resources. Like the population density in Europe and east Asia can be hundreds of times more, and resources much more scarce, so in the US where you have vast mines and forests, which seem normal to you guys but would unbelievable to Europeans, it makes more sense to make a random square mile of concrete or a twenty yard wide road because space and raw materials are pretty much a bottomless reserve in comparison to east Asia and Europe
most relatable comment, i'm so happy i found this channel, yet i somewhat feel my depression is worse at times knowing what i've learned from this channel, because i know that my country has set me up for failure, to live an extremely poor quality of life, and to never be able to afford to move to a more urban, human-friendly place to live. without a driver's license, you can't rent apartments, uhauls, or apply for entry level jobs that have nothing to do with driving. is it any surprise at this point that america treats non-drivers like they have actual criminal records?
Really does depend a lot on the line, the average JR line has one train every 10 minutes outside of peak hours, maybe two with one express and one that does every station. There are really few lines that have less than 5 minutes average wait and most of them are in Tokyo or Osaka.
10:09 That gray building is actually the JR East Japan Headquarters, which is the main train company taking up the biggest portion of Shinjuku station.
One of my favorite things about the Japanese metro is that if you swipe your card and go in the wrong gate so you then have to swipe again to leave, it doesn't charge you!!
Hey, thank you so much for your videos! I chose to go to grad school outside the US after discovering your videos a year ago (a strong reason was urbanism), and I am close to making it happen. So you have definitely had an impact on one person's life at least. For a little context, I grew up in a small town in Texas, and the first time I ever stepped foot in a place where people walked around casually and buildings surrounded me, I was 18 at college and felt like I was in Disneyland. There were even buses! A few years later in New York, I fell in love with taking trains and walking. Visiting home is just depressing in comparison because no one is doing anything, no festivals, not many pedestrians, and no where to walk. It honestly makes me tear up a little seeing places like the train station in this video because it is an absolute fantasy to me, but I hope to experience more of it one day. Once again, thank you for making these!
Being in an extraordinarily boring, dead place is what you are supposed to aspire for. It's the American dream. I'm 69, and I don't think it's a good plan.
Gare du Nord exceeds a million passengers on average weekdays. It has more than twice, and often trice, the passenger attendance of Penn Station. What's commonly said in a pretty ambiguous way is that "Penn is the busiest station in the Western hemisphere". Ambiguous because it is often understood as "in the West", when it only means West of the Greenwich Meridian. A common claim that's not even true as Waterloo and Victoria stations in London are both located West of Greenwich, therefore in the Western hemisphere, and both see higher passenger attendance than Penn Station. If Penn station was located in Europe, it wouldn't even make the top 15 of busiest European stations... Plus, let's not forget that train station attendance numbers in North America usually count both entries and exits. Whereas in continental Europe, like for most lines in Paris Gare du Nord or Hamburg Hbf, only entries via ticket or pass validation in transportation lines of the station are counted, not including exits, nor a substantial part of transfer connections between lines, nor non-traveling visitors. A good chunk of Grand Central's attendance, for example, is made of non-traveling visitors (tourists, shops, restaurants). In real passenger numbers, Grand Central is equivalent to Bern's station in Switzerland or Turin's Porta Nuova station in Italy.
I would just imo Gare du Nord sucks in terms of user experience and in regards to accessibility there is not a single 24 hour train or transit service in all of Paris. Unlike London.
@@RafaquaQuetta There are plenty of night bus lines that are fully accessible. Gare du Nord is accessible on all its surface platforms and the 3 RER lines (the regional express heavy metro). The only parts requiring the use of steps are the historical metro. PRM myself, only the metro is complicated.
As a New Yorker, navigating Shinjuku seemed natural. I was always the guide to figuring things out with my friends. The key is always symbols. Read text as little as possible. Once you enter a station, find out what track has the train going to your destination. From there the only thing you look for is the sign for your track number.
As a Japanese, I can confirm everything in this great video including the station is a maze and has been under the construction as long as I can remember.
If you love transit and trains in particular how can you not love Japan, especially Tokyo. This is next level transportation. I absolutely love visiting this city. It just never gets old.
Nottingham just lost its integrated transport pass, the Robin Hood card, which let you use NCT buses, NET trams, and I believe it worked for Trent-Barton buses as well. It’s… annoying.
@@kev2034 well it’s being phased out currently, i don’t know the exact timeline, but yeah it… sucks it wasn’t the best system in the world but dumping it rather than improving it feels shortsighted
The local government in Nottingham has gone bust. They lost a lot of money on Robin Hood energy. So now in order to recover, services are cut to the bone, subsidies are cut (including Robin Hood card, no doubt), while charges are introduced for everything they can think of.
The cleanliness of a station that operates at such an immense scale, really shows the culture behind the people. Can't help but compare it to my city, Athens, Greece, where you can find litter on remote mountain paths that receive a few hundred people every weekend.
Japan has free public bathrooms. Europe privatized them. When you say behavior of the people. Be clear you mean the behavior of rulers who deliberately impose restrictive cruelty on the masses specifically to make the already rich slightly richer. Handling Litter is Japan just proving it has a better culture than the entire West. Every single western nation is too selfish to ever copy Japan's model for littering.
Maybe I've just watched this channel and channels like this one, and have enjoyed busses, trams, and trains for too long, but this image 0:19 does release happiness in form of chemicals in my head.
Let's see:. Narrow buildings that allow for more variety. Storefronts back to back. Brick roads. Good sense of colors to use for buildings (no garish colors, just subtle natural ones). Well manicured trees. So many things that create something meant for humans.
13:18 “expected completion by 2047” that’s the difference between the US and other countries. Our businesses only care about quarter to quarter performance, while other countries invest for decades out, if not centuries out into the future. We NEED to invest for the future, and not for the next quarter.
I just completed a 2 week stay in Tokyo and was a complete novice to public transportation. The train system is amazing and allowed us to effortlessly and inexpensively buzz all over Tokyo during our stay. We stayed at one of JR East's hotels (modern, clean, silent, inexpensive) which was right on top of one of the main stations and was of huge benefit. Everything you touched on here is accurate. I can't recall if you mentioned it but the politeness and quietness of the Japanese culture/people made the trains even more enjoyable. No loud music. No rude phone calls. No conflicts between passengers. People moving to make way for you. When making way through the crowded stations, the Japanese people almost work together (with zero conflict) to help you make your way through a crowd going the opposite direction - just keep your pace up and your navigation direction obvious. I noted that you were using the Suica card for tourists - they worked everywhere (including convenience stores and vending) and the only physical ticket we had to purchase was an upgrade for the Shinkansen. I am from the USA and we have much to learn from this beautiful culture - well beyond a world-leading train system. +1 for using Google maps to navigate the trains in Tokyo. It is not perfect, but it is close.
The highways you showed when you took a jab at the government for making HUGE FREE roads were without a doubt toll roads. Japan being well known for EXPENSIVE toll roads.
Just wanted to mention on London fares, that whilst yes, you can pay for almost all Public Transport with an Oyster card, fares are not always integrated. For example if you want to get from Wimbledon Station to Oxford circus off-peak, if you take the train to Waterloo, and then the underground it would cost £5.20, however if you take the underground all the way it will cost you £3.00. Same journey, same method of payment, different fare. (Then buses are different again, and some train lines charge different fares, the boats are separate again etc.)
This is the same in Tokyo, even when sticking just to rail transport and only areas where you're not using private train lines. The three rail systems are JR (Japan Railways East), Tokyo Metro subways, and the Toei subways. Depending on which combination of these you take, the fare between any two arbitrary stations can be (and often is) different. (Not normally by more than a couple hundred yen-a dollar or two-though.)
@@Curt_Sampson That's one thing the did work out well here in Switzerland. Longer distances you do have differences in price depending on the route you take. But within any region you have a zoning system, where you buy zones and then can use any transport you like (Rail, Light Rail, Tram, Bus) using any routes within these zones. While all the companies are private or privatized, the operate under state supervision, which ensures that you have both in terms of schedule and tickets a comprehensive system.
I spent 2 months in Tokyo in 1990. There were no automated barriers at that time. All gates were manned by an army of ticket clippers. They had clipping punches in their hand which they rattled continuously. Ticket litter was continually managed. In Shibuya this was quite an audio avalanche. Because it was all new to me I made lots of audio recordings of the urban environment. Another characteristic of the platforms at Shibuya were train announcement jingles. They were just one bar melodic major tunes played on synthesised chimes. Wonderful. I still have one in my head because I heard it so many times. I must find the tapes I made. I'd love to hear them again. Great video. Thanks.
There's some very cool videos online of the manual ticket gate attendants in Shinjuku Station in 1990. They were actually even faster than the ticket gates, inspecting tickets and keeping their scissors clicking constantly. So cool to watch, look it up!
Loved this video! A few things that you might end up pointing out in future videos but wanted to add here: -The bird sounds you may hear in stations were designed to help visually impaired passengers find their platform and exits. Even within the stations you'll often find yellow bumps to tell people if they are heading towards the right train line. -In terms of wheelchair/walker accessibility, my biggest issue is the narrowness of some of the platforms, and sometimes elevators are very far or tucked away from everything else. Meaning a person with an accessibility issue may need to walk/or push their chair around extremely long time to get around. -Some older train stations have much bigger gaps between the trains and platforms which are difficult for wheelchairs -However, often accessible cars are very clearly marked where they will stop along the station line -IC train cards such as Suica, Pasmo, Toica etc work on all rail lines along Japan. You can get Suica on IOS directly. -A lot of Tokyo stations have station stamps so if any train fans are in the comments you can collect those on your Japan trip as a souvenir I hope you also talk about the station amenities like train lockers, restaurants, cafes, shopping, hotels, umbrella and battery rentals, and what I'm truly jealous of- washrooms in the station! Can't wait for the next one :)
As a Canadian who has lived in Japan since Emperor Hirohito's reign, I am amazed at the detail and depth of your video. Are you sure you don't really live in Japan? How did you know that Omoide Yokocho used to be called "Piss Alley"? The name was changed a couple of decades ago, probably to leverage the street's value as a tourist destination. The English version of Omoide Yokocho is "Memory Lane," which sounds a bit nicer than the old name. As for abundant, clean, and accessible washrooms, yeah, I really miss them every time I go to Canada. The difference between the two countries is night and day.
Tokyo commuter here: there used to be trash cans. They removed them. There used to ashtrays on every platforms. They removed them. Ashtrays are fine (I smoke) but trash cans is just because they don’t want to deal with trashes. Shinkansen stations still have them because people eat and drink in the Shinkansen.
Shinjuku station is an awesome place to people watch. To see the newly arrived tourists stumble out of the station, jetlagged and bleary eyed only to be confronted with the confusing array of signs and masses of local commuters is always fun. And yes, I have been one of those people at times as well. I still get lost there occasionally.
When I visited Japan in 2019 (namely Tokyo, Kyoto, and Osaka), one of the many things that struck me was a) how much time I spent in subways stations (though as a tourist cramming a bunch of destinations into a mere 2 weeks that's hardly representative of normal life) and b) how there were so many amenities that this rarely felt burdensome (sure, they weren't necessarily the best destinations, but they were destinations in their own rights, especially Tokyo Station, Shiniuku Station, and Kyoto Station; but even in smaller stations I could actually imagine popping into a station for certain things even if I didn't plan on taking a train). Also, the streets and roads were consistently emptier and felt safer to cross than anywhere with comparable lanes in North America any time aside from peak hours. And not just because of the lack of on-street parking, though that definitely contributed.
The superb Shinjuku Gyoen garden is just a ten-minute walk from the station, or closer if you hop a subway. The much less expansive Shinjuku Central Park is just a few minutes walk from the station.
I love Japan so much, I’ve never been far from my hometown but I cannot wait to move out and go travelling, I want to travel the entirety of Japan first 🥹
I've been to Japan for the first time last year and it blew away my expectations, I absolutely fell in love with the country and especially Tokyo. Next year, I'm going back for a year as a student and I couldn't be more excited. Fantastic video, just what I needed to remind me of my Vorfreude.
I go through this station on my way to the office almost every day. Usually it is fine but when there is an accident in the station, the other station or on the railway track and the trains stop. People can't go nowhere and stuck there and the station become very crowded.
Great Video! As a german that is daily annoyed by the problems of DB, I also really appreciated the bit about the problems of privatication in this context.
I’m an Australian who lived in Tokyo for 7 years and used Shinjuku station and a few connected by underground walkways almost every day for 5 years. It was a mess at times, but it always worked. Great memories. Riding public transport with the cross section of a society will bond you to them.
Part of why the gates are so fast is because the Japanese FeLiCa IC card system is an offline-first stored value system and doesn't have to connect to any external service to process a fare. Some other transit sysyems use a similar system like Oyster cars in London but FeLiCa has been highly optimized for speed. This is in contrast to the EMV contactless standard used by debit and credit cards and many transit systems now.
Suica 2.0 is online and that's what's rolled out in most of Tokyo (and Tohoku) as of this year. The AtADistance blog has a lot more info on the transition!
Ooh Shinjuku. I can tell that I hate this station with passion no matter how efficient it is. 8 years in Japan and I'm still getting lost whenever I have to use the station for transfer. 😅
The having multiple different rail passes thing is only for tourists. Unless things have changed recently you can not even buy the JR rail passes if you are a Japanese resident. Locals still have to pay when changing between trains between different operators but you use the same card. There are even trains that switch operators when they pass through a station even though you don't get off the train. They just charge you more when you are exiting.
I recall hearing that the Los Angeles streetcar companies made their money through selling nearby real estate, and when there was no more real estate to sell, became unprofitable. I get that this business model captures some of the increase in value created by the transit, but it seems weak longer term. Maybe if the real estate is kept and operated, as it sounds like the Japanese companies do, rather than sold, the model might be more viable. I was concerned to hear that Brightline's business model in Florida includes real estate, if that's indeed the case, i didn't hear anything really solid about it.
The railroads across the US were the same: they built railroad towns and made them valuable because of the railway. Almost every town in the US was originally built on a railroad line. Now most of them don't even have a station anymore and the rail lines, if they weren't torn up, are only used for freight.
I am not a pro in this topic, but, isn't the false way to go? What i now the city and the public services work together. So once the city redevelopment a part or wants to have a new line, they work together with puplic services to not only make the line profitable when it's even possible, but also set the new street or block in this way up, that the line works as best with the buildings on it's various destinations. It's not the task of the public traffic cooperation to buy streets and built it up and not the task of the city to build public transportations. For the best possible outcome they have to cooperate to bult the right things! EDIT: Yes, some times the city owns the public services, but mostly they are a cooperation on it self. They may get the contract from the city, but have to work out the plan on themselves and with some back and forth a new line or a rebuild line gets finally open.
It can work, when the residents of those real estate is bound to use your railway line and shop on your station mall on their way home. That's how the Japanese railways do it as well.
I feel like the good things you mentioned about Shinjuku station is just reflective of the great train culture found around Tokyo and Japan. That being said, as a Tokyo resident, i try to avoid Shinjuku as much as possible due to the crowds.
As an American, I have a question. How do they, if they do at all, deal with crime on trains? There doesn’t seem to be any security scanning peoples things? Literally within weeks of America making something like this, we would have a terrorist attack/mass shooting etc. And think about it, it’s a perfect place for something like that to happen, moving THAT many people. I’m just curious if Japan even does any kind of security.
@@Valscorn01 Japan generally has low crime rates. I have a friend who once forgot his camera bag on the Yamanote Line train, so he went and grabbed a coffee at the station while waiting for the train to loop back around, and an hour later he just stepped back on and grabbed his bag. There's no specific security beyond messages/announcements for people to report suspicious items or behavior to staff. I've also heard the removal of garbage bins being framed as a security measure, but I don't know to what degree that's true. Incidents do very occasionally happen though, like the 1995 sarin gas terrorist attacks in the subway, but I don't think it'd be feasible to scan tens of millions of people every day to stop a once-every-couple-of-decades incident.
@@zzzae The reason I ask is, if America were to try to implement something like this, within months people would already be shooting each other at it, like our metro trains already. I think Americans are just in general, more violent than the rest of the world, and I don’t know why.
Great video and I'm glad you brought up the annoyances caused by Japan's rail network being broken up into a million private companies. It's less obvious at Shinjuku because it's a massive, sprawling station, but it gets more apparent in smaller destinations as I've often found that, even though multiple different rail companies will have service to that destination, they will often have their own stations within that city that may not be near one another. You might want to head to a small town to see a beautiful shrine or climb a mountain, only to find out that the rail service you used takes you to the station on the opposite end of town near the university, and that public transport options in that town are less robust than they were in the city you came from. You're often better served going to a different part of your city of origin via robust public transportation networks to get to the station of the rail service that will have a station most conveniently located at your destination. Just a bit of annoyance in navigating what is otherwise one of the finest rail networks on the planet. I would love a comparison to Seoul Station and the Korail service in general. It's not as comprehensive as Japan's, but the fact that all of the rail lines are integrated with easy connections to subway services makes it an absolute breeze to navigate while still maintaining a lot of the features that make Japan's railways so great.
Yes! Japanese fare gates deserve their own video! There are a lot of things they do well that the rest of the world needs to learn from, including being deep with two sets of doors, allowing the doors to open or close in time even with a fast-moving flow of people. And making only a brief sound when you tap your card instead of an extended "beeeeeeep" sound, which would just result in a constant drone of "eeeeeeee-" noise around fare gates, making it impossible to distinguish the sound of your own tap. Here in Vancouver we apparently copied London's much-worse fare gate design, and it already results in crowding around fare gates even with our much smaller flow of transit riders.
Thanks a lot for this fascinating video. I passed through Shinjuku several times back in the late 70s. I live in Houston, which of course is an urban transit nightmare.
The public restroom thing hits very close to home. I live in Germany, most bigger stations have toilets here, but almost all have been privatized. It's just disgusting, that you have to pay for a basic human need now, and it also leads to very disgusting results, around the city. Thanks neoliberals!
@@krunkle5136 how the used to in germany. place a tip for the cleaning staff. usually those person used to earn quite a good living in germany with next to no education. at some point those ladies were replaced by those "tall" gates and minimum wage staff. since then it is a lot more expensive and worse ...
@@krunkle5136Yeah, why would public be expected to pay money to have guaranteed access to clean toilets? Having literal $hit in the street is clearly better than paying a communist potty tax.
I wish you could review Umeda station in Osaka! I find it absolutely mind-boggling, I never have any idea of where to go or where things are. The way the ticket gates are underground, some "exits" are underground tunnels leading to other areas, others bring you directly into a shopping mall!
@@woolyd.436looked it up for fun, the quickest morning route from Tokyo station to Aso station (Kumamoto) takes 7 hours and 29 minutes. Two shinkansen, two local trains, one of which involves a cross platform transfer
Assuming this video was filmed in the two weeks prior to posting, I was in Tokyo at the same time as you and my mind was also blown by both Shinjuku and Shibuya stations. Was surprised at the amount of private transfers (such as airport and tour buses) that connected at these points and how efficiently they got in and out of the city on vehicle roads without impeding station traffic.
WoW! I would have bet money on the busiest station being a train station in India. Great video showing how public transit should be the main form of transport in all countries.
The privatization "issue" you mentioned here is a legacy of modern Japanese history. There are many so-called "private" railroad companies all around Japan. However, these companies are not result of "privatization", they "ARE" the actual builders of Japanese railroads. Japan was not a state with a true central government until the Meiji Emperor regained the executive power from the Tokugawa shogunate. Even after the establishment of the new Meiji government, the former regional powers (Daimio, 大名), still had great control power over regional affairs and development, and hence the central government actually needed the cooperation of these local powers. Besides, the new Meiji government was quite poor upon its establishment, so many constructions, including railroads, were the work of private companies. The current situation of Japanese railroads is the result of history and competition between companies, I don't think it's a bad thing. The ticketing issue you encountered here are already solved by e-ticket like Suica card, which you certainly have one and showed in the video. By the way, it's not wise to criticize the combination of profits of JR East or any railroad companies. Transportation, as a sector of utility nature, is not really a for-profit business if you want to provide the services to as many people as possible. Real estate development projects, and in fact, the city/urban area development projects in many cities of Japan, are an essential and integral part of mass transportation projects. Companies, including de-facto state-owned companies like JR East/West, need those incomes from real estates, shopping malls, office buildings built around rail stations to keep the money-losing transportation business going. I do like your videos, but I don't always agree with your comments. In particularly when you failed to take the historical and cultural elements into accounts. The mass transportation system of Tokyo is not perfect of course, however, if you could spend more time on the history of Japan, I believe you would be able to give comment that are more appropriate, constructive and meaningful.
Private companies building railroads isn't anything particularly unique, though, it's just that usually there is some point in history where the problems with private railways combined with people's dependency on them causes the railways to end up being nationalised. Only to often end up privatised again in the late 20th century, mostly for ideological reasons. JR is definitely a case of privatisation, though, it used to be the Japanese National Railways. From what I understand, however, it seems to be a setup where the government still retains some control over JR that it doesn't have over other private railways. There are also still some major government-owned railways like Tokyo Metro and Toei and I think that might be a major part of what makes the whole system work: JR, which is more bound by government requirements, and government-owned railways provide service at a certain standard, setting the public's expectations, requiring private railways to at least live up to those expectations. Meanwhile, the dependency of the public on the railway system means that if one of the private companies wants to get out of managing railways to focus exclusively on real estate, the most likely outcome is that the government takes control of their railways and stations and they'd have to start acquiring real estate from scratch, which is a major risk, preventing the false vacuum decay scenario raised as a possibility in the video from happening. Basically, all parties involved are stuck in a rat king situation that happens to be good for the public. It's still a bit risky though. I think there are some points in history that only needed to have gone slightly differently for Tokyo to have ended up with a transit system that more closely resembles Okinawa's. And you don't know what opportunities for companies to break out of that situation the future will bring.
Ah, yes, the fabled Tamahagane railroads, folded fifty zillion times and can cut a person's commute time to zero... unique to Japan's superior culture, passed down from ancient masters...
Recently started watching your videos and also cycling to work in Linköping (Sweden). When I moved here I was struck by how many people biked. It's been interesting navigating the bicycle infrastructure while keeping your videos in mind
6:50 It's very true, a train driver once crashed a train killing himself along with passengers by going over speed limit through a curve to catch up with timetable he fallen behind.
On the topic of stations... You should REALLY make a video about Stockholm's artistic metro stations! I live here in Stockholm and I sometimes travel by metro just to enjoy all the art - it's brilliant! It makes public transit an attractive option. There's even a book about them!
Came here for the Eggslut reference. Left Satisfied. We went last September, and after Ottawa's transit, Tokyo, and especially Shinjuku, was an amazing revelation. Also check out Bright Trip Japanese Train System video. This is how we navagated around Japan, and it made the experience stress free and easy.
I first wend to Japan in the 90s. You didn't have Suica pass yet. Gates were already fast then. My main travel route always involved Keio Line from Meidaimae station to Shinjuku station using department store entrances. I haven't been there for a while, because my relatives are no longer, so it was nice to see the station again.
I’m still surprised about the concept of night bus. What do you mean buses don’t run at night? There’s always someone who needs to take the bus at night - college students, security workers, police, health workers… Reduced service is the way to go.
Those who miss the last trains or busses either take a taxi to get home or end up staying the night at an internet cafe Night buses are basically like greyhounds, but since japan is only the size of California, they can basically get you to your destination in a single night. The ticket prices are often cheaper than the shinkansens so its a viable option if you can somehow manage sleeping in a cramped box
Do what this channel is entirely centered around and ride your bike. You people are always talking about how much better it is anyways. What, is it secretly inconvenient and annoying?
I like the way Berlin does things for the U-Bahn: Friday and Saturday nights, the trains just run through the night (though with reduced frequency and train size). The rest of the week, there are night busses that run every half hour that more-or-less mimic the U-Bahn lines (e.g. the N7 bus mostly mimics the U7 train, N8 for U8, etc.), with a few extra stops since that's easy to do on the surface. And they have synchronized transfers where the lines cross.
The Amsterdam city centre gets a lot of trash, especially on weekends and holidays, and so do places like the Albert Cuypmarkt, they just clean it up the next morning. It amazes me how filthy US cities are though. Even compared to Canada, nevermind Japan.
I traveled through most of Japan last year over the course of a month and the only garbage I spotted were the trash bags left in front of houses for collection. I think that Japan not having any trashcans actually changes the mentality of people - we're all used to throwing our garbage away asap, so when people don't see a trashcan, they don't know what to do with it and just throw it wherever. But if there are never any trash cans anywhere, everyone learns to put their trash back into their bag. (And to carry a plastic bag in there for things that could get messy, like empty coffee cups.)
As a note, common practices if you are stuck after the last trains is staying at a net or manga cafe (or adult dvd lol), which are open 24/7 and allow temporary or night stays and even often have showers and private booths you can recline/sleep in. Convenience stores are also open 24/7 usually. Alternatively, you can just stay out drinking until 4 AM. Usually people will just remind you about last trains though. You are not necessarily stranded in a now dead city like you would be in other parts of the world.
Few first thoughts 1:45 there were plans to have a Narita Shinkansen. With those plans, the Joetsu Shinkansen would have gone all the way to Narita Airport via Omiya, Shinjuku and Tokyo. Instead of what it does now, which via Omiya, Ueno and Tokyo. 11:33 good luck getting any locker at any major station during the day 14:27 i missed out on this on my last trip, ill have to remember to check it out on my next one. 15:29 JR Kyushu is about to switch away from fixed prices and into dynamic prices (for its Shinkansen) and many think it won't be long until it becomes like an airline
@@mfaizsyahmi I'm not sure about the reserved space for Shinjuku sration, but the platforms that were originally built for the Narita Shinkansen at Narita are now being used by Keisei Narita for the Skyliner and other sky access routes (if my memory serves me right)
@@mfaizsyahmi There still exists a plan to diverge Hokuriku Shinkansen to Shinjuku station to reduce congestion at Tokyo station, as well as Chuo line which connects these two stations. But this plan also means a new shinkansen station in Ikebukuro would be needed, and I wonder are there any underground spaces still available...
Sign up to Nebula for only $30 per year!
go.nebula.tv/notjustbikes
Watch this video ad-free on Nebula: nebula.tv/videos/notjustbikes-i-visited-the-worlds-busiest-train-station
Watch Life Where I'm From, "How Tokyo's Subway Keeps On-time, Clean, and Safe":
Nebula: nebula.tv/videos/lifewhereimfrom-how-tokyos-subway-keeps-on-time-clean-and-safe?ref=notjustbikes
RUclips: ruclips.net/video/ZT6H_XMDm7s/видео.html
japan is cheap to travel to now trend appears, few months later we get a NJB's video.... You have truely embrased dutch cheapness :)
je moet perse met een creditcard betalen. waarom niet met Paypal? ik wil geen creditcard die ik verder niet gebruik.
19:25 Unfortunately, Nebula is not the best way to watch, if you have Firefox and a 4k monitor. It won't let Firefox stream videos in full resolution.
Wow dude you actually got me this time. 300 bucks! Keep up the good work. I'm visiting Norway thanks to your videos.
As a Norwegian (from a country of 5 million-ish people), the idea of three million people passing through a single rail station daily is just mind-blowing to me.
Absolutely. I think of the entire population of the city of Toronto, 2.93 million, going through this single station every single day. Mind-blowing.
@@NotJustBikes and also sort of comical to think about.
Shinjuku is not a single station, though. It's principally 5 stations by 3 railway companies and 2 subway companies side by side or on top of one another. That's the secret sauce, in that a lot of people has to transfer lines here.
This station cycles every person in Berlin 3 times a day and takes less than a month to transport every person in Germany.
Was having a similar thought being from Scotland myself
Shinjuku station, while busy and insane, still felt better than driving around LA. 100% would rather be in Shinjuku.
The whole of southern California is one car centric hell scape
Yes, that's true. I'm in San Bernardino, where you would think traffic would be better than LA. It isn't, it's terrible.
Southern California is the biggest waste of perfect bikeable weather. Mild and rarely rains too. Such a shame
At least they are trying. The number of transit projects under construction in greater Los Angeles is insane, with an even larger batch in various levels of planning and pre-construction. The last few years have had about one project open each year and there should be three or four opening next year (nothing much really in 2024 though). Existing lines are getting more service too.
On a friday, it takes longer to get out of the city when driving from LA to Vegas than the 250 mile drive to vegas.
The comparison to a highway is insane - more than 50 lanes! Clear proof of how much better trains are at moving people.
Especially when you consider that even a modest 4-lane highway cutting through the middle of a city can completely destroy all of the street life around it (especially the exits). Nothing beats trains for mass transportation in and out of a city.
50 lanes. Can't imagine parking lot size required by US law😂
And ppl in cars will also need somewhere to park.
You forgot to add "in a city"
@autobootpiloot Also between other cities. Most of the cases, actually
When we were to Tokyo on an excursion at University, one of the places we visited was the Toshiba Science Museum, where they had an exhibit showing how the ticket machines work. The crazy part about them is that you would sometimes have to use more than one paper ticket, and regardless of how you insert the tickets, they come out in the same order, oriented the same way. They're an absolute marvel of engineering.
I've always been irritated how slow fare gates are, forcing you to break stride. If Shinjuku gates are that fast, there's no excuse for gates everywhere not to be that fast.
Gates are fast all over Japan, it's not just a Shinjuku thing. They react almost instantaneously and it's been that way for a long time. So it's really frustrating that fare gates, even here in the Netherlands, can take a second or two to respond.
They use different technology than most of the transportation cards (with a notable exception of Hong Kong) actually. Sony FeliCa is quite known for fast transaction time. I guess most countries choose NXP Mifare for cheaper prices but I'm not sure.
And in Luxembourg, no gates are needed at all. Just wonderful.
Though at that rate I don't think free public transit would work in Tokyo, they don't need incentives to increase usage...
This is because of FeliCa, the NFC standard used in Japan's IC transit cards. JR fare gates actually have an operational requirement of 60 people per minute... this is the reason why open-loop payment is actually not the solution here in Japan - bank cards simply don't have good enough technology in them. Credit/debit EMV taps take ~500ms and the transaction begins from 4cm away, while FeliCa taps (used by Japan's IC cards like Suica) begin from 10cm and only take 100ms, allowing for much much higher passenger throughput. It's pretty crazy!
When I first arrived in japan a few months ago for a 2 week vacation, I was absolutely lost, tired and had no working cellphone yet along with my luggage but the people who I approached for help were so kind. I accidentally entered the wrong train line so the station assistants let me pass through free to fix my mistake after saying where I needed to get to. Then I had trouble understanding which platform I needed to be on to go in the right direction so I asked a man who did not speak English, he kindly went up the stairs with me to show me the platform I needed despite him waiting for his own train which was arriving very soon. Many times throughout my vacation my heart was warmed by interactions like this. I was at the arcades and a fellow next to me gave me all of his extra Kancolle cards along with a special English one saying she spoke enough just like me and he had a big warm smile as he explained to me. Then at the super market a little old lady laughed and told me that I’m so tall, I could grab anything off any high shelf unlike her. I’m definitely visiting again next year
I was in japan a few months ago too but i was a traveller helping another traveller, I was mid sentence explaining which platform his train is in when my train suddenly arrives, and my friend just dragged me in the train. Although i left so hastily he was still nice enough to wave me a goodbye. I feel so bad for not being able to help that guy, but the next train is probably after 20mins. I still feel bad for that poor guy.🥲
I think the importance of 'little' things like the quick gates or the markings on the ground telling you where to go and where to stand in line can't be understated. Just goes to show the people responsible for this know how people move and what causes the flow of motion to stock.
It's all incremental improvements over time, with a lot of public input as well. For example, the system where you get on specific cars so that you exit closest to your exits were devised by a group of commuting housewives, not from some top-down policy.
@@mfaizsyahmihow did that get done concretely, by a suggestion box or something? I like the idea of this back and forth consensus building.
can't be *overstated,* but yes.
The big one that stood out to me was the "stand here to get on, people getting off will go through here" thing. Absurdly simple, and makes onboarding and offboarding so much easier, and it's just a bit of paint on the ground and some acculturation time to get used to it. I can't believe Toronto hasn't done it yet...
@@hypotheticalaxolotl Unfortunately, it wouldn't work elsewhere.
It works well in Japan because of their mindset. People generally obey signs and instructions, without even thinking about it. It's natural, normal behaviour.
If you tried to implement the same thing in London - for example - people would largely ignore the markings, then start loud arguments with others that were, causing greater chaos than the current anarchic boarding.
I laughed when you said the construction would be finished in 2047 -- then I cried when I realized that here in the USA construction on such a project would be STARTING in 2047.
15:43 Not here in Japan. High-speed roads have some of the highest tolls in the world. They're supposed to be removed whenever the roads are fully paid off, but the date for that keeps getting pushed back. Traveling cross-country via car is significantly more expensive than flying.
They literally pushed back the date from 2024 to 2074 now :D
And the roads aren't even high speed. You can go 80km/h most of the time, sometimes 100km/h. The toll is around 3 times the basic fare train ticket.
I've driven twice on the meishin expressway going 80km/h whilst being overtaken by a shinkansen doing 285km/h..
Do you know if the dates are pushed back because of maintenance costs or because they just want to make a profit?
That will encourage transit use :)
@@ic5889 Highways are not profitable. If anything I'd assume they keep the tolls because they know the highways would go into a huge deficit the moment the tolls were removed.
The thing I love so much about Japanese infrastructure is that it opened my eyes to how old infrastructure can both work well and feel good to use. Corridors built in the 70s and 80s have changed only a little, but because they’ve been kept clean and been given lighting improvements, they feel nice to walk through. The London Underground, meanwhile, often feels cramped, dirty and poorly lit, even in modern stations built in the 90s. A little TLC goes a long way.
So glad you included Eggslut.
-Tokyo does have night busses but they aren't very well known.- A taxi from Shibuya to Shinjuku would less than 2000 yen
The change between rail companies doesn't matter to us, everyone either has a regular pass for their commute or just use e-money like Suica and Pasmo, the computer work out the fare.
Edited: the night bus system was discountinued in 2022.
Japanese folks are the biggest egg sluts on planet earth. From raw egg and rice to some of their omelettes, it is a country that loves eggs way too much
Eggslut? Please tell me youre joking.
@@TaylorfromPapaLouie It's from Califorina.
@@TaylorfromPapaLouie Did you miss the clip?
Shibuya to shinjuku isn't that far though. It's only 2 yamanote line stations. You can walk it in around 40 minutes, which I've done several times.
7:25 in my past decade of living here, I think I’ve only seen the train pushers about a handful of times. They only appear at rush hours on heavy commuter lines (like the Saitama-to-Tokyo Saikyo line of the Chiba-to-Tokyo Keiyo line). From what I’ve heard and personally seen, they most often appear in the winter, when people’s puffy coats allow for some compression without injuring everyone involved. So while they do exist, they have become much rarer.
I would also like to add that a noteworthy change that made Tokyo’s rush hour much better was companies allowing for later starting hours, which staggered the rush hour between students (6-8) and workers (8-10) who commute. After the pandemic, the rush hour was further reduced with flexible hours and remote works becoming more mainstreamed.
So a lot of little things went into making this system what it is today. And (as of right not) I wouldn’t want to live anywhere else.
Did you immigrate there?? If so, how was the process??
@@DaDoubleDee It's surprisingly easy and smooth as long as you have a valid reason for immigration - basically either be married to a Japanese person, or have your visa sponsored by a Japanese employer.
Japanese bureaucracy, while there is a lot of it, is generally pretty smooth to navigate and most public servants are actually trying to help you do things right, unlike in Europe where it often feels like they're instructed to find any reason to deny as many applications as possible.
When I moved to Japan on a spouse visa, the process took about 5 weeks and there were not many hoops to jump through. For comparison, when me and my wife moved back to my home country 10 years later, the wait time for her visa was 7 months (which was lucky - some people wait 2-3 years), plus there were a whole bunch of hoops to jump through like having to provide proof of adequately sized housing and adequately paid employment before applying. (A bit of a catch-22 having to have a house and a job in the country potentially several years before you can actually move there.)
Just adding to this that Japan is also launching a Digital Nomad visa so you can potentially also move without having to be hired by a Japanese company which, given the weakness of the yen, is potentially a good path to go down.
I was for one Month in Japan in Summer 2017 and two Weeks in Tokyo. I saw one Pusher at Rush Hour on the Keiyō Line going to Tokyo.
If anyone noticed like I did @1:40 a Japanese man pulling a luggage wheel is wearing a band t-shirt called "Issues" which is a metalcore band I was heavily into from 2012 to about 2020 when they broke up. They weren't super huge, but it's crazy to see someone in Japan heard about them! Crazy and cool and random fact of the day :)
THATS SO COOL!!!
I live in Hokkaido and one thing I really like here is that most major train stations are also shopping malls (and even a bunch of smaller stations are connected to a small one). It makes so much more sense than then being plopped way outside the city. Also something I've noticed is that supermarkets are often mini-shopping malls themselves, at least up here most of them will have a scattering of other small shops within the building.
Going bike touring there for 3 weeks in early July! Super excited.
Funny: Utrecht Centraal, the busiest train station in the Netherlands, was coupled to a mall since 1973, but is was disconnected again in 2018.
The infrastructure feels really friendly to small-medium business owners.
To be fair, Hokkaido does have a ton of big stores and malls far away from the city center/railway/bus lines, and with American sized parking lots.
As mentioned in the video, Japanese railroads are real estate development companies that also operate trains on the side.
My wife and I just got back from our honeymoon where we spent a lot of time in-and-out of Shinjuku. While there's lots of people coming and going, you wouldn't believe its around 3 millions people per day because of how smoothly everything operates there. Much, MUCH better than what we have here in Melbourne.
It’s not smooth at all. I’m glad you think your 1 week experience in Japan gave you enough insight lmfao.
@@conor7154 a week?
@@conor7154 you should make it so your responses on videos are hidden mate. You're clearly very unwell in how you respond to people. I hope you learn how to socialise and get the help you need 😂
@@conor7154 His insight appears correct to me. I've been living in Japan for more than twenty years, and have been through Shinjuku station many hundreds of times. (It's not one I use regularly, though it's not significantly different from any other large station in Tokyo.)
@@conor7154So, maybe tell us about your first-hand experience? You seem to have knowledge you're not sharing.
14:31 "This kid was loving it." - So did the "kid" behind the camera. And the "kid" watching this video.
You are the absolute king of urbanism on RUclips! The "gym of life", these are your greatest words.
My grandpa lived a healthy life till the age of 98, because he walked everywhere. He wasn't an athlete, but he also wasn't a driver. Driving kills you, just like alcohol or smoking.
I recently moved with my wife to a place, where I can easily walk to the next metro station (1,2 km) and it has made my life 100x better. I can still drive wherever I want, but I don't commute to work by car anymore.
Comparing driving to drinking or smoking might be the most moronic neoliberal brained idea anyone on this channel has had. You’re literally the reason people upload completions of cyclists being ran over.
Hilarious. He can't even spell compilation.
Your car brain is showing.
@@douchopotamus3755 yeah that guy has been writing on lots of comments on varying videos. Check his comment history, there's something clearly wrong with him.
It's also addictive like alcohol and smoking. A short sighted pleasure at the cost of your own health and that of the city
@@conor7154 I mean, ask any doctor about a sedentary lifestyle. It's probably one of the worst things you can do to your heart, and car dependency is a major contributor to it.
If anyone wondered, the sign at 14:23 that won't let you have any fun said:
🚫No smoking
🚫No open flames
🚫No littering
🚫No dangerous goods
🚫No assembly without permission
🚫No unauthorized selling
🚫No distribution of flyers of similar, and No speech
🚫No excessive noise
🚫No riding motorcycles or bicycles
🚫No skateboards or radio-controlled or ball playing
🚫Do not enter in flowering plants
🚫Do not lie down
🚫It will ban the act to be a nuisance to other customers
As long we can carry guns around, we'll be fine. Wait, in Japan...
@@garryferrington811 >No speech
honestly not sure if that's the intended meaning lol
@northamericanvanlines it probably means no speeches. As in "no political assemblies or similar activities without prior authorization."
Me, an Indian: _I guess I'm not welcome here._
No crying
I can highly recommend the book Emergent Tokyo: Designing the Spontaneous City. While not transport focused, it really helps to shine a light on how the city (and cities in Japan in general) developed differently than American/European cities and what makes them so special.
I'm guessing that had a lot do with the city being literally leveled last century. So they had quite a canvas to work with.
@Praisethesunson That's certainly part of it. But also regulations and the fact that Tokyo is not a city, but a conglomerate of cities. Each City (i.e. Shinjuku, Shibuya etc.) was allowed to develop into their own identity. Also, Shinjuku was a few years ago basically farmland, water treatment and single family homes. This was after WWII. The development into this extremy busy (and still liveable) hub happened more recently (iirc 80s/90s) in a few years. It is a prime example that change or even a completly new city and transport system can be build very fast and doesn't need to be developed out of centuries of existing stuff, as it is usually the case in europe.
Just to add, the concept of vertical public spaces is also fascinating coming from europe, even though it is not that unique in the Asian region.
@Praisethesunson This station started in the 19th century, so the flattening is irrelevant.
Regarding most profits being real estate: the real estate that the JR companies own has a high value exactly because it owns the land near a lot of the stations. This means that a lot of the value and profits of their real estate business is exactly because they also keep the transit system running. Neglecting the transit business would also cause them to make less money with real estate.
Right, people and businesses will pay more rent to be located next to train stations, it's much more fair for that to go to the train company than to random landowners who just got lucky.
And it's a source of transit funding that *nobody minds* and hardly anyone notices. The only alternatives are higher fares or government subsidies.
Honestly, I wish every transit agency was set up like that. A major funding source without having to have political fights over fares or taxes? Excellent.
It seems like a brilliant system.
That's reasoning is far too community minded for a company. Why run the train at a loss when you can just sell it back to the government so they can do the unprofitable bit of getting people to your business?
@@shraka
Unless the government is also run by bean counters that don't want to run something that looses money
I appreciate that you covered the negatives as well. Like the privatized rail lines making everything a bit difficult.
I visited Tokyo Disneyland the other day and at the end of the day, thousands of people started exiting the park at the same time. I was ready for 1 hr+ delay to get home based on how it’s like in the US. Incredibly, on every train arrival, massive crowds on the platform were cleared. I arrived home without any delay. Yes the train was packed, but the ability to travel like there is zero traffic at any given peak hours is incredible.
when I visited, there was inclement weather (rain and high wind speeds) so while we had the same problem of big crowds gathering, trains were only coming maybe once every 20 minutes due to weather delays, since the rail bridges above the rivers are so exposed. We ended up changing our route to get in a train going the other direction than planned because it was so crowded and the wait was so long. It took us an hour to get back to our hotel in ryogoku that couldn’t have been more than 30 minutes away normally.
@@thatotherguy3348Well there was a severe snowstorm in Toronto and the entire highway was blocked and caused crazy traffic jam… They had to wait entire night for snow to clear up so they can finally reach home by the next afternoon… I remember this happened in January 2022…
As a german guy with half of my family working in the german train/rail system let me just say that an effective system requires effective people. That means, among other things, following the rules and showing courtesy, which is where most countries will fail. For example in Germany the biggest factor contributing to late (local) trains are the people. Blocking closing doors, breaking windows, emptying fire extinguishers during the ride, beggars that sleep and relief themselves in the train, people beating each other up, going along the train tracks, etc. all just contribute a fraction to the problem but in the great sum its just a big shit sandwich. We have open train stations, so there are no gates which just invites trouble + its impossible to monitor / secure in its entirety. The track is also above ground which breaks when the temperature is either too low or too hot. I've been to Japan 2 times and enjoyed traveling the country by train. When I came back to Germany, even though the train was 10x less packed than in Japan, yet it felt more uncomfortable. Its crazy what common courtesy / consideration of the people around you can accomplish.
So yea, just my 2 cents.
Also just the culture seems to push this good behavior
Sorry to hear that about Germany.
"That means, among other things, following the rules and showing courtesy, which is where most countries will fail."
I looked at the fare gates in Shinjuku and they would be ineffective in Washington DC where I am since it appears so easy to go through/under/over them. Fare evasion is a huge problem here so Metro is installing new gates and fences that require actively fare evaders to climb over rather than merely step over and yet some young men do that too. There is no shame for them. Now with the new gates, people will try and follow close behind you as you exit; two people attempted to slide through with me last week but I stopped as soon as I got past the gate and allowed it to close, then shouted at them to get their own ticket. Fortunately, neither of them shot me which is always a potential problem here; someone was shot in this same station last year (Potomac Avenue).
I'm Austrian and I hate fare gates. They are inconvenient, slow you down if you're in a rush, make you get out your card/wallet/phone/whatever the ticket is on way too often which opens you up to theft or just accidentally dropping things and losing them. They also cost money to operate that could be spent on employing actual humans if you insist on checking tickets, although I would argue a society has more to gain from some people evading the fares but 99% of people in a city regularly taking public transit than the alternative. I think the "issue" of homeless people sleeping in metro or train stations is better solved by following a housing-first approach to homelessness, I don't think these people are there by choice. Also free and clean public restrooms were rightfully pointed out as being bascially non-existant in Europe. I would concur that some people are not very considerate when they are in public here, but for the most part it's fine, and I vastly prefer our gateless metro and train system in Vienna over the alternative.
I didn't see any of that in Germany and the trains were late, always, super late. German train system is abysmal, and it's quite the shock given the reputation for German efficiency. It'd be like going to the UK and finding out people can't queue properly.
As a Dutch person who has been to Shinjuku station thanks for reaffirming that going there multiple times you can still get lost. When I go abroad I can always get the hang of public transport within a week but Sinjuku station is a special place. Cant wait to visit Tokyo again. Beautiful content as always!
Crazy how I can feel your excitement, it really is "visible" just through voice alone. We need more of this and that.
This brings back memories, I stayed near Shinjuku during my first visit to Tokyo and am delighted how much of the station and its surroundings I can remember. That stay by Shinjuku was totally eye opening for me, traveling in and around this area just bustling with so many people, so much urban fabric/things to do, so much transit, and with it all all flowing so smoothly. Especially coming from a continent where 6 trains a day is considered high frequency. While the SUICA cards were nice, I agree that the lack of integration (often meaning paying multiple times along a journey) was a bit of a bummer. Great overview, and I love Tomoyuki Tanaka’s drawing of the station! Also, love the delayed "of 2047." If only any transit project was as forward thinking over here!
I’m one of 3 million that pass through here every day! I transfer between 2 different train companies (Keio and JR Yamanote) and it’s packed all the time but very smooth. There’s a direct transfer gate that switches me between the two with just one tap. It’s a great station with areas I still have yet to discover
Hey that's my route when I lived in Inagi and Chofu! If you stay long enough, you'll get to have a much better ride after they finish grade separating between Sasazuka and Sengawa. Unfortunately, I've been stuck on a train that hit a person at a street crossing 3 times over 4 years living around there.
Living in Japan, the great thing about this is that it acts as a feeder for various parts of the city. I think it's really cool how so many different companies control the trains, so you can have friends from odakyu coming from the east or people taking JR, etc. I think this strategy of making hundreds of rail companies instead of just one like in most other places is what really drives Japanese rail innovation as well
As a European, soon as you said, "Take a hint, Europe." I was like "Oi that's not fai......no no actually never mind good point"
Aaaah, nothing better than paying 1€ everytime you wanna go to a bathroom
@@justtheaverageone3840 thats is the difference of having a clean bathroom, and a dirty one wich is shit all over.
@@justtheaverageone3840 Not in the UK!
@@lexburen5932 not an excuse, Japan does it, many others can also do it
In Norway we have o gates :D
So technically that's even faster!
Car friendliness in Tokyo is quite surprising to me. Tokyo used to have lots of canals but many were either filled in or covered with highways. Tokyo also had lots of trams but these were taken out when they built subways, and replaced with car lanes. There's also many times when I had to wait to cross a street that had literally no traffic because Japan really cares about jaywalking, while their traffic lights remain kinda dumb.
Also the bike infrastructure is very bad. The amount of painted bike "lanes" just slapped on the side of a big road is kinda ridiculous.
Yup, it's like that everywhere here. Traffic light frequently stop large amounts of people so a handful of cars can go. There's a light right between the bike parking and the train station where I live. It's awful
@@Arkiasis Resulting in people often riding their bike on the sidewalks instead, and becoming a nuisance to pedestrians.
watching this channel as an american is deeply painful, the rest of the world looks so vibrant and full of life and everything here is just dead, nothingness
Dormitory suburbs are supposed to be like that. You must obey.
Why? You don't have friends in America?
As a french, i have the stereotype that new york and a bit of chicago SF the beaches of LA and maybe miami are full but the rest of the US is empty or mostly empty, no idea if it’s true
I think it's a matter of space and resources. Like the population density in Europe and east Asia can be hundreds of times more, and resources much more scarce, so in the US where you have vast mines and forests, which seem normal to you guys but would unbelievable to Europeans, it makes more sense to make a random square mile of concrete or a twenty yard wide road because space and raw materials are pretty much a bottomless reserve in comparison to east Asia and Europe
most relatable comment, i'm so happy i found this channel, yet i somewhat feel my depression is worse at times knowing what i've learned from this channel, because i know that my country has set me up for failure, to live an extremely poor quality of life, and to never be able to afford to move to a more urban, human-friendly place to live. without a driver's license, you can't rent apartments, uhauls, or apply for entry level jobs that have nothing to do with driving. is it any surprise at this point that america treats non-drivers like they have actual criminal records?
“How often does the train go by?”
“So often you won’t even notice.”
Blues Brothers my beloved
Really does depend a lot on the line, the average JR line has one train every 10 minutes outside of peak hours, maybe two with one express and one that does every station.
There are really few lines that have less than 5 minutes average wait and most of them are in Tokyo or Osaka.
“How often does the train go by?”
"Yes"
10:09 That gray building is actually the JR East Japan Headquarters, which is the main train company taking up the biggest portion of Shinjuku station.
One of my favorite things about the Japanese metro is that if you swipe your card and go in the wrong gate so you then have to swipe again to leave, it doesn't charge you!!
Hey, thank you so much for your videos! I chose to go to grad school outside the US after discovering your videos a year ago (a strong reason was urbanism), and I am close to making it happen. So you have definitely had an impact on one person's life at least.
For a little context, I grew up in a small town in Texas, and the first time I ever stepped foot in a place where people walked around casually and buildings surrounded me, I was 18 at college and felt like I was in Disneyland. There were even buses! A few years later in New York, I fell in love with taking trains and walking. Visiting home is just depressing in comparison because no one is doing anything, no festivals, not many pedestrians, and no where to walk. It honestly makes me tear up a little seeing places like the train station in this video because it is an absolute fantasy to me, but I hope to experience more of it one day.
Once again, thank you for making these!
Being in an extraordinarily boring, dead place is what you are supposed to aspire for. It's the American dream.
I'm 69, and I don't think it's a good plan.
Not Just Bikes + Japan, the collab everyone has been waiting for.
Gare du Nord exceeds a million passengers on average weekdays.
It has more than twice, and often trice, the passenger attendance of Penn Station.
What's commonly said in a pretty ambiguous way is that "Penn is the busiest station in the Western hemisphere". Ambiguous because it is often understood as "in the West", when it only means West of the Greenwich Meridian.
A common claim that's not even true as Waterloo and Victoria stations in London are both located West of Greenwich, therefore in the Western hemisphere, and both see higher passenger attendance than Penn Station.
If Penn station was located in Europe, it wouldn't even make the top 15 of busiest European stations...
Plus, let's not forget that train station attendance numbers in North America usually count both entries and exits.
Whereas in continental Europe, like for most lines in Paris Gare du Nord or Hamburg Hbf, only entries via ticket or pass validation in transportation lines of the station are counted, not including exits, nor a substantial part of transfer connections between lines, nor non-traveling visitors.
A good chunk of Grand Central's attendance, for example, is made of non-traveling visitors (tourists, shops, restaurants).
In real passenger numbers, Grand Central is equivalent to Bern's station in Switzerland or Turin's Porta Nuova station in Italy.
I would just imo Gare du Nord sucks in terms of user experience and in regards to accessibility there is not a single 24 hour train or transit service in all of Paris. Unlike London.
@@RafaquaQuetta There are plenty of night bus lines that are fully accessible.
Gare du Nord is accessible on all its surface platforms and the 3 RER lines (the regional express heavy metro).
The only parts requiring the use of steps are the historical metro.
PRM myself, only the metro is complicated.
Thanks for clarifying that.
As a New Yorker, navigating Shinjuku seemed natural. I was always the guide to figuring things out with my friends.
The key is always symbols. Read text as little as possible. Once you enter a station, find out what track has the train going to your destination. From there the only thing you look for is the sign for your track number.
As a Japanese, I can confirm everything in this great video including the station is a maze and has been under the construction as long as I can remember.
Unrelated comment, but It's inspirational how much you've traveled over the years, experiencing different cultures and cities sounds awesome.
If you love transit and trains in particular how can you not love Japan, especially Tokyo. This is next level transportation. I absolutely love visiting this city. It just never gets old.
Shinjuku! My home town 😅 so glad you finally did a video here 🎉🇯🇵
As a Swede, the idea of about a third of our population passing through a station is just insane
@@anduxmappingSweden has about 10 Million people.
Half of 10 is 5, not 3.
@@spaghettiisyummy.3623 I know, I'm just estimating. Point still stands
Nottingham just lost its integrated transport pass, the Robin Hood card, which let you use NCT buses, NET trams, and I believe it worked for Trent-Barton buses as well. It’s… annoying.
Didn't realise they stopped doing that but it's sad to see
@@kev2034 well it’s being phased out currently, i don’t know the exact timeline, but yeah it… sucks
it wasn’t the best system in the world but dumping it rather than improving it feels shortsighted
rep notts, bring back the trams RIP drury hill and trinity church
The local government in Nottingham has gone bust. They lost a lot of money on Robin Hood energy. So now in order to recover, services are cut to the bone, subsidies are cut (including Robin Hood card, no doubt), while charges are introduced for everything they can think of.
Annoying is the polite word.
The cleanliness of a station that operates at such an immense scale, really shows the culture behind the people. Can't help but compare it to my city, Athens, Greece, where you can find litter on remote mountain paths that receive a few hundred people every weekend.
A major factor in the quality of mass-transit public transportation is the behaviour of the people, esp. hygiene and litter.
Japan has free public bathrooms. Europe privatized them.
When you say behavior of the people. Be clear you mean the behavior of rulers who deliberately impose restrictive cruelty on the masses specifically to make the already rich slightly richer.
Handling Litter is Japan just proving it has a better culture than the entire West. Every single western nation is too selfish to ever copy Japan's model for littering.
Maybe I've just watched this channel and channels like this one, and have enjoyed busses, trams, and trains for too long, but this image 0:19 does release happiness in form of chemicals in my head.
Yep, spot on🤣
9:19 omg look at how beautiful this street is
Let's see:. Narrow buildings that allow for more variety. Storefronts back to back.
Brick roads.
Good sense of colors to use for buildings (no garish colors, just subtle natural ones).
Well manicured trees.
So many things that create something meant for humans.
it's... perfect 🥲
@@krunkle5136 And also no cars, or on street parking
13:18 “expected completion by 2047” that’s the difference between the US and other countries. Our businesses only care about quarter to quarter performance, while other countries invest for decades out, if not centuries out into the future. We NEED to invest for the future, and not for the next quarter.
Why?
@@garryferrington811 not american, but countries need to make long-term investmens if they want things like walkable cities
I just completed a 2 week stay in Tokyo and was a complete novice to public transportation. The train system is amazing and allowed us to effortlessly and inexpensively buzz all over Tokyo during our stay. We stayed at one of JR East's hotels (modern, clean, silent, inexpensive) which was right on top of one of the main stations and was of huge benefit. Everything you touched on here is accurate. I can't recall if you mentioned it but the politeness and quietness of the Japanese culture/people made the trains even more enjoyable. No loud music. No rude phone calls. No conflicts between passengers. People moving to make way for you. When making way through the crowded stations, the Japanese people almost work together (with zero conflict) to help you make your way through a crowd going the opposite direction - just keep your pace up and your navigation direction obvious. I noted that you were using the Suica card for tourists - they worked everywhere (including convenience stores and vending) and the only physical ticket we had to purchase was an upgrade for the Shinkansen. I am from the USA and we have much to learn from this beautiful culture - well beyond a world-leading train system. +1 for using Google maps to navigate the trains in Tokyo. It is not perfect, but it is close.
The highways you showed when you took a jab at the government for making HUGE FREE roads were without a doubt toll roads. Japan being well known for EXPENSIVE toll roads.
That's a first for me, never encountered them. Didn't go roadtripping though
@@XGD5layer Japanese expressways are universally toll access only. Incredibly expensive as well. Something like 30 yen per mile in most cases.
And in the U.S. we pay on average $0.02 per mile in fuel excise tax not to mention toll roads. Not sure where these free roads are lol
Just wanted to mention on London fares, that whilst yes, you can pay for almost all Public Transport with an Oyster card, fares are not always integrated. For example if you want to get from Wimbledon Station to Oxford circus off-peak, if you take the train to Waterloo, and then the underground it would cost £5.20, however if you take the underground all the way it will cost you £3.00. Same journey, same method of payment, different fare.
(Then buses are different again, and some train lines charge different fares, the boats are separate again etc.)
This is the same in Tokyo, even when sticking just to rail transport and only areas where you're not using private train lines. The three rail systems are JR (Japan Railways East), Tokyo Metro subways, and the Toei subways. Depending on which combination of these you take, the fare between any two arbitrary stations can be (and often is) different. (Not normally by more than a couple hundred yen-a dollar or two-though.)
@@Curt_Sampson That's one thing the did work out well here in Switzerland. Longer distances you do have differences in price depending on the route you take. But within any region you have a zoning system, where you buy zones and then can use any transport you like (Rail, Light Rail, Tram, Bus) using any routes within these zones. While all the companies are private or privatized, the operate under state supervision, which ensures that you have both in terms of schedule and tickets a comprehensive system.
I spent 2 months in Tokyo in 1990. There were no automated barriers at that time. All gates were manned by an army of ticket clippers. They had clipping punches in their hand which they rattled continuously. Ticket litter was continually managed. In Shibuya this was quite an audio avalanche. Because it was all new to me I made lots of audio recordings of the urban environment. Another characteristic of the platforms at Shibuya were train announcement jingles. They were just one bar melodic major tunes played on synthesised chimes. Wonderful. I still have one in my head because I heard it so many times. I must find the tapes I made. I'd love to hear them again. Great video. Thanks.
There's some very cool videos online of the manual ticket gate attendants in Shinjuku Station in 1990. They were actually even faster than the ticket gates, inspecting tickets and keeping their scissors clicking constantly. So cool to watch, look it up!
Loved this video! A few things that you might end up pointing out in future videos but wanted to add here:
-The bird sounds you may hear in stations were designed to help visually impaired passengers find their platform and exits. Even within the stations you'll often find yellow bumps to tell people if they are heading towards the right train line.
-In terms of wheelchair/walker accessibility, my biggest issue is the narrowness of some of the platforms, and sometimes elevators are very far or tucked away from everything else. Meaning a person with an accessibility issue may need to walk/or push their chair around extremely long time to get around.
-Some older train stations have much bigger gaps between the trains and platforms which are difficult for wheelchairs
-However, often accessible cars are very clearly marked where they will stop along the station line
-IC train cards such as Suica, Pasmo, Toica etc work on all rail lines along Japan. You can get Suica on IOS directly.
-A lot of Tokyo stations have station stamps so if any train fans are in the comments you can collect those on your Japan trip as a souvenir
I hope you also talk about the station amenities like train lockers, restaurants, cafes, shopping, hotels, umbrella and battery rentals, and what I'm truly jealous of- washrooms in the station! Can't wait for the next one :)
As a Canadian who has lived in Japan since Emperor Hirohito's reign, I am amazed at the detail and depth of your video. Are you sure you don't really live in Japan? How did you know that Omoide Yokocho used to be called "Piss Alley"? The name was changed a couple of decades ago, probably to leverage the street's value as a tourist destination. The English version of Omoide Yokocho is "Memory Lane," which sounds a bit nicer than the old name. As for abundant, clean, and accessible washrooms, yeah, I really miss them every time I go to Canada. The difference between the two countries is night and day.
I still call it by the old name.
FWIW, my local CPR station, Mission City Station, doesn't have washrooms. Or a roof over the single platform.
It's always fun to see real places you've virtually visited. I've been through shinjuku so many times in Persona 5!
Tokyo commuter here: there used to be trash cans. They removed them. There used to ashtrays on every platforms. They removed them. Ashtrays are fine (I smoke) but trash cans is just because they don’t want to deal with trashes. Shinkansen stations still have them because people eat and drink in the Shinkansen.
Shinjuku station is an awesome place to people watch. To see the newly arrived tourists stumble out of the station, jetlagged and bleary eyed only to be confronted with the confusing array of signs and masses of local commuters is always fun. And yes, I have been one of those people at times as well. I still get lost there occasionally.
Probably the most developped video about Shinjuku station I've ever seen. Really well put together
When I visited Japan in 2019 (namely Tokyo, Kyoto, and Osaka), one of the many things that struck me was a) how much time I spent in subways stations (though as a tourist cramming a bunch of destinations into a mere 2 weeks that's hardly representative of normal life) and b) how there were so many amenities that this rarely felt burdensome (sure, they weren't necessarily the best destinations, but they were destinations in their own rights, especially Tokyo Station, Shiniuku Station, and Kyoto Station; but even in smaller stations I could actually imagine popping into a station for certain things even if I didn't plan on taking a train).
Also, the streets and roads were consistently emptier and felt safer to cross than anywhere with comparable lanes in North America any time aside from peak hours. And not just because of the lack of on-street parking, though that definitely contributed.
went to japan last fall and i fell in love SO HARD for their infrustructure
Favorite Japanese to English translation at 18:56 "Mildly Air Conditioned Car" -- No HARSH AC on this train car.
The Japanese says "weakly."
The superb Shinjuku Gyoen garden is just a ten-minute walk from the station, or closer if you hop a subway. The much less expansive Shinjuku Central Park is just a few minutes walk from the station.
I love Japan so much, I’ve never been far from my hometown but I cannot wait to move out and go travelling, I want to travel the entirety of Japan first 🥹
I've been to Japan for the first time last year and it blew away my expectations, I absolutely fell in love with the country and especially Tokyo. Next year, I'm going back for a year as a student and I couldn't be more excited. Fantastic video, just what I needed to remind me of my Vorfreude.
You're making me miss Japan so much, I could easily get lost in the train system, as someone who absolutely loves trains
13:46 Ah yes, the eggslut. Great place that.
It's no chicken skank, but it's good enough.
Yes, originally from downtown Los Angeles
Joking aside, it's got really good food :D
not even just a translation issue, literally just an american business that called themselves that
Always support the big corporations. That's America, buddy!
I go through this station on my way to the office almost every day.
Usually it is fine but when there is an accident in the station, the other station or on the railway track and the trains stop.
People can't go nowhere and stuck there and the station become very crowded.
13:46 What if we kissed at our local eggslut, haha just kidding, unless...
Haha yes that store was one of the first things I took a picture of in Tokyo and I immediately sent it to all my friends.
me n my homies be confounding at the local eggslut
😳😳😳
@@DoubLL Spreading the word about a Los Angeles based restaurant chain while in Japan?
@@gmanjapan lmao is it really from the US? Why did they pick that name? I just assumed it was an unfortunate case of bad translation
Great Video! As a german that is daily annoyed by the problems of DB, I also really appreciated the bit about the problems of privatication in this context.
Shout out to Toronto's Vomit Comet! I live on Bloor Street. It literally stops at my apartment building's front door. 🤣
Every since you did the Switzerland train video I’ve been waiting for you to do the Japan train video, so thank you
I’m an Australian who lived in Tokyo for 7 years and used Shinjuku station and a few connected by underground walkways almost every day for 5 years. It was a mess at times, but it always worked. Great memories. Riding public transport with the cross section of a society will bond you to them.
Part of why the gates are so fast is because the Japanese FeLiCa IC card system is an offline-first stored value system and doesn't have to connect to any external service to process a fare. Some other transit sysyems use a similar system like Oyster cars in London but FeLiCa has been highly optimized for speed. This is in contrast to the EMV contactless standard used by debit and credit cards and many transit systems now.
Suica 2.0 is online and that's what's rolled out in most of Tokyo (and Tohoku) as of this year. The AtADistance blog has a lot more info on the transition!
Ooh Shinjuku. I can tell that I hate this station with passion no matter how efficient it is. 8 years in Japan and I'm still getting lost whenever I have to use the station for transfer. 😅
The having multiple different rail passes thing is only for tourists. Unless things have changed recently you can not even buy the JR rail passes if you are a Japanese resident. Locals still have to pay when changing between trains between different operators but you use the same card. There are even trains that switch operators when they pass through a station even though you don't get off the train. They just charge you more when you are exiting.
I recall hearing that the Los Angeles streetcar companies made their money through selling nearby real estate, and when there was no more real estate to sell, became unprofitable. I get that this business model captures some of the increase in value created by the transit, but it seems weak longer term. Maybe if the real estate is kept and operated, as it sounds like the Japanese companies do, rather than sold, the model might be more viable. I was concerned to hear that Brightline's business model in Florida includes real estate, if that's indeed the case, i didn't hear anything really solid about it.
The railroads across the US were the same: they built railroad towns and made them valuable because of the railway.
Almost every town in the US was originally built on a railroad line. Now most of them don't even have a station anymore and the rail lines, if they weren't torn up, are only used for freight.
I am not a pro in this topic, but, isn't the false way to go? What i now the city and the public services work together. So once the city redevelopment a part or wants to have a new line, they work together with puplic services to not only make the line profitable when it's even possible, but also set the new street or block in this way up, that the line works as best with the buildings on it's various destinations.
It's not the task of the public traffic cooperation to buy streets and built it up and not the task of the city to build public transportations. For the best possible outcome they have to cooperate to bult the right things!
EDIT: Yes, some times the city owns the public services, but mostly they are a cooperation on it self. They may get the contract from the city, but have to work out the plan on themselves and with some back and forth a new line or a rebuild line gets finally open.
It can work, when the residents of those real estate is bound to use your railway line and shop on your station mall on their way home. That's how the Japanese railways do it as well.
@@mfaizsyahmi
It looks like. Stopped right before he explained it.
For my defence, this is not so common where i live.
That just sounds like common business sense. If only new stations would pop up in America in an epic buy up of property. Make it mixed development.
I feel like the good things you mentioned about Shinjuku station is just reflective of the great train culture found around Tokyo and Japan. That being said, as a Tokyo resident, i try to avoid Shinjuku as much as possible due to the crowds.
As an American, I have a question. How do they, if they do at all, deal with crime on trains? There doesn’t seem to be any security scanning peoples things?
Literally within weeks of America making something like this, we would have a terrorist attack/mass shooting etc.
And think about it, it’s a perfect place for something like that to happen, moving THAT many people. I’m just curious if Japan even does any kind of security.
@@Valscorn01 Japan generally has low crime rates. I have a friend who once forgot his camera bag on the Yamanote Line train, so he went and grabbed a coffee at the station while waiting for the train to loop back around, and an hour later he just stepped back on and grabbed his bag.
There's no specific security beyond messages/announcements for people to report suspicious items or behavior to staff.
I've also heard the removal of garbage bins being framed as a security measure, but I don't know to what degree that's true.
Incidents do very occasionally happen though, like the 1995 sarin gas terrorist attacks in the subway, but I don't think it'd be feasible to scan tens of millions of people every day to stop a once-every-couple-of-decades incident.
@@Valscorn01 Like in most places in the world there a no checks. America is the weird one here.
@@zzzae The reason I ask is, if America were to try to implement something like this, within months people would already be shooting each other at it, like our metro trains already.
I think Americans are just in general, more violent than the rest of the world, and I don’t know why.
Great video and I'm glad you brought up the annoyances caused by Japan's rail network being broken up into a million private companies. It's less obvious at Shinjuku because it's a massive, sprawling station, but it gets more apparent in smaller destinations as I've often found that, even though multiple different rail companies will have service to that destination, they will often have their own stations within that city that may not be near one another. You might want to head to a small town to see a beautiful shrine or climb a mountain, only to find out that the rail service you used takes you to the station on the opposite end of town near the university, and that public transport options in that town are less robust than they were in the city you came from. You're often better served going to a different part of your city of origin via robust public transportation networks to get to the station of the rail service that will have a station most conveniently located at your destination. Just a bit of annoyance in navigating what is otherwise one of the finest rail networks on the planet.
I would love a comparison to Seoul Station and the Korail service in general. It's not as comprehensive as Japan's, but the fact that all of the rail lines are integrated with easy connections to subway services makes it an absolute breeze to navigate while still maintaining a lot of the features that make Japan's railways so great.
Yes! Japanese fare gates deserve their own video! There are a lot of things they do well that the rest of the world needs to learn from, including being deep with two sets of doors, allowing the doors to open or close in time even with a fast-moving flow of people. And making only a brief sound when you tap your card instead of an extended "beeeeeeep" sound, which would just result in a constant drone of "eeeeeeee-" noise around fare gates, making it impossible to distinguish the sound of your own tap.
Here in Vancouver we apparently copied London's much-worse fare gate design, and it already results in crowding around fare gates even with our much smaller flow of transit riders.
Did you know they beep differently when a kid with a kid pass goes through? It's the cutest.
Why do I get so excited when a new NJB video comes out?
Because it's good content ? :P
He's a really good speaker. Nice voice and cadence, right amount of sarcasm and jokes.
Because it's exciting!
Thanks a lot for this fascinating video. I passed through Shinjuku several times back in the late 70s. I live in Houston, which of course is an urban transit nightmare.
been to japan last year in tokyo and the stations there. its impressive how efficient it is over there with the trains
I lived in Japan for 3 months and it’s so weird to see you record places i’ve passed by hundreds of times without thinking about it
The public restroom thing hits very close to home. I live in Germany, most bigger stations have toilets here, but almost all have been privatized. It's just disgusting, that you have to pay for a basic human need now, and it also leads to very disgusting results, around the city. Thanks neoliberals!
But how do you pay for the maintenance? You can only rely on so much tax revenue.
Three words: Modern Monetary Theory😇
It keeps the bathrooms clean. Just visit any Starbucks in NYC and you will quickly learn why this is a good idea
@@krunkle5136
how the used to in germany. place a tip for the cleaning staff. usually those person used to earn quite a good living in germany with next to no education. at some point those ladies were replaced by those "tall" gates and minimum wage staff. since then it is a lot more expensive and worse ...
@@krunkle5136Yeah, why would public be expected to pay money to have guaranteed access to clean toilets? Having literal $hit in the street is clearly better than paying a communist potty tax.
Shinjuku to Shibuya is like a 40 min walk, it's not that awful.
I wish you could review Umeda station in Osaka! I find it absolutely mind-boggling, I never have any idea of where to go or where things are. The way the ticket gates are underground, some "exits" are underground tunnels leading to other areas, others bring you directly into a shopping mall!
Finally a video on japan. Always thought japan was the best example of TOD
I just got back from Japan, can't wait to see this one.
I rode trains from Tokyo to Aso station 😊 They're awesome!!
Damn, how far is that?
@@woolyd.436looked it up for fun, the quickest morning route from Tokyo station to Aso station (Kumamoto) takes 7 hours and 29 minutes. Two shinkansen, two local trains, one of which involves a cross platform transfer
@@woolyd.436 About 8 or 9 hours from start to finish I guess
@@nfboogaard you must like train rides
Assuming this video was filmed in the two weeks prior to posting, I was in Tokyo at the same time as you and my mind was also blown by both Shinjuku and Shibuya stations. Was surprised at the amount of private transfers (such as airport and tour buses) that connected at these points and how efficiently they got in and out of the city on vehicle roads without impeding station traffic.
WoW! I would have bet money on the busiest station being a train station in India. Great video showing how public transit should be the main form of transport in all countries.
The privatization "issue" you mentioned here is a legacy of modern Japanese history.
There are many so-called "private" railroad companies all around Japan. However, these companies are not result of "privatization", they "ARE" the actual builders of Japanese railroads.
Japan was not a state with a true central government until the Meiji Emperor regained the executive power from the Tokugawa shogunate. Even after the establishment of the new Meiji government, the former regional powers (Daimio, 大名), still had great control power over regional affairs and development, and hence the central government actually needed the cooperation of these local powers. Besides, the new Meiji government was quite poor upon its establishment, so many constructions, including railroads, were the work of private companies.
The current situation of Japanese railroads is the result of history and competition between companies, I don't think it's a bad thing. The ticketing issue you encountered here are already solved by e-ticket like Suica card, which you certainly have one and showed in the video.
By the way, it's not wise to criticize the combination of profits of JR East or any railroad companies. Transportation, as a sector of utility nature, is not really a for-profit business if you want to provide the services to as many people as possible. Real estate development projects, and in fact, the city/urban area development projects in many cities of Japan, are an essential and integral part of mass transportation projects.
Companies, including de-facto state-owned companies like JR East/West, need those incomes from real estates, shopping malls, office buildings built around rail stations to keep the money-losing transportation business going.
I do like your videos, but I don't always agree with your comments. In particularly when you failed to take the historical and cultural elements into accounts.
The mass transportation system of Tokyo is not perfect of course, however, if you could spend more time on the history of Japan, I believe you would be able to give comment that are more appropriate, constructive and meaningful.
Private companies building railroads isn't anything particularly unique, though, it's just that usually there is some point in history where the problems with private railways combined with people's dependency on them causes the railways to end up being nationalised. Only to often end up privatised again in the late 20th century, mostly for ideological reasons. JR is definitely a case of privatisation, though, it used to be the Japanese National Railways. From what I understand, however, it seems to be a setup where the government still retains some control over JR that it doesn't have over other private railways.
There are also still some major government-owned railways like Tokyo Metro and Toei and I think that might be a major part of what makes the whole system work: JR, which is more bound by government requirements, and government-owned railways provide service at a certain standard, setting the public's expectations, requiring private railways to at least live up to those expectations. Meanwhile, the dependency of the public on the railway system means that if one of the private companies wants to get out of managing railways to focus exclusively on real estate, the most likely outcome is that the government takes control of their railways and stations and they'd have to start acquiring real estate from scratch, which is a major risk, preventing the false vacuum decay scenario raised as a possibility in the video from happening.
Basically, all parties involved are stuck in a rat king situation that happens to be good for the public. It's still a bit risky though. I think there are some points in history that only needed to have gone slightly differently for Tokyo to have ended up with a transit system that more closely resembles Okinawa's. And you don't know what opportunities for companies to break out of that situation the future will bring.
Ah, yes, the fabled Tamahagane railroads, folded fifty zillion times and can cut a person's commute time to zero... unique to Japan's superior culture, passed down from ancient masters...
Recently started watching your videos and also cycling to work in Linköping (Sweden). When I moved here I was struck by how many people biked. It's been interesting navigating the bicycle infrastructure while keeping your videos in mind
I never really understood how awesome bike infrastructure in Linköping is until I started to watch this channel.
@@greghall4836 Haha same!
6:50 It's very true, a train driver once crashed a train killing himself along with passengers by going over speed limit through a curve to catch up with timetable he fallen behind.
On the topic of stations...
You should REALLY make a video about Stockholm's artistic metro stations!
I live here in Stockholm and I sometimes travel by metro just to enjoy all the art - it's brilliant! It makes public transit an attractive option. There's even a book about them!
Love Rådhuset!
@@elipandaman Yes! It's beautiful! The orange palette combined with the robust pillars makes it truly other-worldly
Came here for the Eggslut reference. Left Satisfied. We went last September, and after Ottawa's transit, Tokyo, and especially Shinjuku, was an amazing revelation. Also check out Bright Trip Japanese Train System video. This is how we navagated around Japan, and it made the experience stress free and easy.
I first wend to Japan in the 90s. You didn't have Suica pass yet. Gates were already fast then.
My main travel route always involved Keio Line from Meidaimae station to Shinjuku station using department store entrances. I haven't been there for a while, because my relatives are no longer, so it was nice to see the station again.
I’m still surprised about the concept of night bus. What do you mean buses don’t run at night? There’s always someone who needs to take the bus at night - college students, security workers, police, health workers… Reduced service is the way to go.
Those who miss the last trains or busses either take a taxi to get home or end up staying the night at an internet cafe
Night buses are basically like greyhounds, but since japan is only the size of California, they can basically get you to your destination in a single night. The ticket prices are often cheaper than the shinkansens so its a viable option if you can somehow manage sleeping in a cramped box
Do what this channel is entirely centered around and ride your bike. You people are always talking about how much better it is anyways. What, is it secretly inconvenient and annoying?
@@conor7154 Yknow kinda hard to get from one big city to the other with it.
Also you smugness is amusing.
I like the way Berlin does things for the U-Bahn: Friday and Saturday nights, the trains just run through the night (though with reduced frequency and train size). The rest of the week, there are night busses that run every half hour that more-or-less mimic the U-Bahn lines (e.g. the N7 bus mostly mimics the U7 train, N8 for U8, etc.), with a few extra stops since that's easy to do on the surface. And they have synchronized transfers where the lines cross.
@@conor7154 When you're drunk and trying to get home from the bar, yeah. I hope you aren't suggesting someone in that situation should drive home.
Just once, I'd like you to do a video with shots of places covered in trash, just so I don't feel like where I live in the land of filthy oddballs.
The Amsterdam city centre gets a lot of trash, especially on weekends and holidays, and so do places like the Albert Cuypmarkt, they just clean it up the next morning.
It amazes me how filthy US cities are though. Even compared to Canada, nevermind Japan.
I traveled through most of Japan last year over the course of a month and the only garbage I spotted were the trash bags left in front of houses for collection.
I think that Japan not having any trashcans actually changes the mentality of people - we're all used to throwing our garbage away asap, so when people don't see a trashcan, they don't know what to do with it and just throw it wherever.
But if there are never any trash cans anywhere, everyone learns to put their trash back into their bag. (And to carry a plastic bag in there for things that could get messy, like empty coffee cups.)
@@DoubLL There are plenty of sketchy places with lot of trash in Japan too, but obviously even citizens rarely go to these places, let alone tourists.
Every major European train station smells like piss after a friday/saturday night.
@@DoubLL In Japan, appearance is everything. When you peak behind the scenes, you'll find the trash.
As a note, common practices if you are stuck after the last trains is staying at a net or manga cafe (or adult dvd lol), which are open 24/7 and allow temporary or night stays and even often have showers and private booths you can recline/sleep in. Convenience stores are also open 24/7 usually. Alternatively, you can just stay out drinking until 4 AM. Usually people will just remind you about last trains though.
You are not necessarily stranded in a now dead city like you would be in other parts of the world.
Few first thoughts
1:45 there were plans to have a Narita Shinkansen. With those plans, the Joetsu Shinkansen would have gone all the way to Narita Airport via Omiya, Shinjuku and Tokyo. Instead of what it does now, which via Omiya, Ueno and Tokyo.
11:33 good luck getting any locker at any major station during the day
14:27 i missed out on this on my last trip, ill have to remember to check it out on my next one.
15:29 JR Kyushu is about to switch away from fixed prices and into dynamic prices (for its Shinkansen) and many think it won't be long until it becomes like an airline
Yes. IIRC there's still space reserved underground below Shinjuku for this shinkansen plan.
@@mfaizsyahmi
I'm not sure about the reserved space for Shinjuku sration, but the platforms that were originally built for the Narita Shinkansen at Narita are now being used by Keisei Narita for the Skyliner and other sky access routes (if my memory serves me right)
@@mfaizsyahmi There still exists a plan to diverge Hokuriku Shinkansen to Shinjuku station to reduce congestion at Tokyo station, as well as Chuo line which connects these two stations.
But this plan also means a new shinkansen station in Ikebukuro would be needed, and I wonder are there any underground spaces still available...