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The Shinkansen and Japan’s Lost Decades

By | | Transportation
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Japan is known for many things, but two of them are the Shinkansen high-speed trains and the nation’s three Lost Decades of slow economic growth. Unfortunately, most tourists who go to Japan see the former and don’t see the latter and especially don’t see the connection between the two.

The distinctive noses of Japan’s first high-speed trains led people to call them bullet trains, a name that has endured even though later trains were shaped quite differently.

Yesterday’s 60th anniversary of the first revenue runs of the Shinkansen generated many laudatory articles about the trains. “Bullet trains changed the world of rail travel forever,” said CNN. The Guardian called it “The train that helped rebuild the idea of a country.” Continue reading →

$650 Million Plus $17 Million a Year for 1,100 Daily Riders

By | | Transportation
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In 2004, Denver’s Regional Transit District persuaded the region’s voters to support a sales tax increase to pay for six new rail lines that together would cost about $3.5 billion to build. The agency claimed to be surprised when costs doubled soon after the election. Since then, the $7 billion RTD has spent on rail capital improvements was only enough to build five lines, while the sixth line, which was supposed to connect Longmont and Boulder with downtown Denver, remains unbuilt.

A Denver commuter train connecting the airport with downtown. Photo by Jarrett Stewart.

While all of the rail lines were idiotic, there were good reasons to delete the Longmont line. First, the Boulder part of the line was duplicated by a bus-rapid transit line that has probably been the most successful of the projects funded by the 2004 tax increase. Second, RTD’s own analysis found that the line to Longmont would be so expensive and carry so few passengers that the cost of carrying one rider would be more than $60 compared with under $10 for most other FasTracks lines and no more than $22 for any other line. The line was projected to cost a third as much as all of the other lines put together yet carry only 7 percent as many passengers. Continue reading →

Addressing the Housing Crisis

By | | Housing
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Japan’s population is roughly equal to the five most-populous states of the U.S. — California, Florida, New York, Pennsylvania, and Texas — concentrated in a nation that has approximately the land area of Montana, which is only about a fourth as large as those five most-populous states. Moreover, well over 40 percent of Japanese live in the Tokyo-Osaka corridor, which is considerably smaller than the Boston-Washington corridor yet has a greater population.

Single-family homes in Japan.

Despite this concentration, most Japanese live in single-family homes. While that percentage has been declining, in recent years that decline has been due to the rise in people living alone. In major urban areas, single-family homes are often on small lots, but they are on large lots in smaller towns and rural areas. Just as in the U.S., most Japanese families aspire to live in a single-family home. Continue reading →

July Transit Ridership 71.1% of 2019

By | | Transportation
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I’m back from Japan and mostly recovered from jet lag. I may write about my Japan experiences next week but first it’s time to look closely at the July transit data posted by the Federal Transit Administration the day I left the states.

Based on a quickie analysis on my iPhone I previously reported that transit carried only about 64 percent as many riders in July of 2024 as the same month of 2019. However, I warned that I wasn’t certain about this as I was having trouble analyzing a 15 megabyte spreadsheet on the phone. In fact, the number is 71.1 percent, which is better than 64 percent but worse than any month since July 2023. Continue reading →

Bicycles in Japan

By | | Mission
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Lots of people ride bicycles in Japan and there are a few bike lanes in streets. But most of the designated bike lanes are on sidewalks.

Today I walked on a street in Kyoto that was eight lanes wide. The sidewalks were split by a small fence with one side designated for pedestrians and the other for cyclists.

It struck that if anyone suggested dividing U.S. sidewalks into pedestrian and bicycle sides, many people would be outraged that pedestrians would have to give up space to bicycles. Yet these same people expect motorists to be willing to give up street space for bicycles.

I’m not saying the Japanese way is necessarily right. I still think the best way to protect bicycle riders is to designate local streets as bicycle boulevards. At the same time, I don’t think the real agenda of those who want to put bike lanes in busy streets is not pro-bicycle but anti-auto.

$336,000 to Go Back to School

By | | Transportation
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The Honolulu Rail Authority just gave its CEO a 22% pay raise on the condition that she goes back to school to learn about how to be a CEO. In her three years as CEO she has harassed employees, offended board members, and overseen escalating costs, yet the board decided she is worth $336,000 a year.

Honestly there is no point in me making any jokes about this because the whole thing is a joke. Such as the fact that she has no prior CEO experience but instead previously worked for HDR and other rail contractors that helped cause some of the cost overruns. Or the fact that the board will pay for her to spend much of two years at UC Berkeley learning how to do her job. Or the fact that the board will also pay for her to receive executive “coaching,” which is a scam in itself.

And finally there is the fact that the board excused her whopping pay raise simply because it is her first raise since they hired her in 2021. Has your pay gone up 22% in the last three years?

Time Off

By | | Housekeeping
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The Antiplanner will be in Japan from today through September 23. I doubt I’ll make any posts during that time, but I might send a couple of photos.

If all goes well, I’ll take a ride on this train.

Since the Federal Transit Administration hasn’t yet posted July transit data, my analysis of that data will have to wait until my return. If you are eager to review the data, it will be here (currently showing June data, but it will show July when it is posted).

What Is Wrong With Our Country?

By | | News commentary
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Four people were shot and killed on a Chicago Blue Line elevated train early Labor Day morning. Police say the victims, who were not seated together, appeared to be asleep at the time and “may have been homeless.” A suspect is in custody, and police say it was “an isolated incident and a random attack,” as if that is supposed to make people feel safer.

Some reports of the murders claimed the crime took place on a commuter train; others said it was a subway. In fact it was an elevated train. Photo by AlphaBeta135.

When I learned about these murders, I had already been thinking about transit crime because of a story that appeared in the St. Paul Pioneer Press about the decline of the intersection of Snelling and University, two of the most important commercial corridors in Minnesota’s capital city. Continue reading →

July Driving 99.2% of 2019

By | | Transportation, Useful Data
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Americans drove 99.2 percent as many miles in July 2024 as the same month in 2019, according to data published by the Federal Highway Administration yesterday. This is one of the few times that monthly highway traffic data have been released before transit ridership data.

July transit data are not yet available.

Except in April 2024, when driving dipped below 94 percent of pre-pandemic levels, miles of driving have been 99 percent to 103 percent every month for the last year. As usual, rural driving was more: 3.5 percent above 2019, while urban driving was 2.8 percent less than in 2019. However, driving on urban interstates grew 1.4 percent.