For starts, most mass transit agencies in Japan are for profit private companies listed on the Tokyo Stock Exchange. They're main focus is to make profits for shareholders.

Over here, it's run by the local government. And anything that is run by the government sucks.

>>328857

No. In Europe they're almost exclusively run by the governments, for one.

>>328856
>What is it that Japan is doing right and what is it that we're doing wrong?
well, for one thing--they legislatively make it disproportionately expensive to own private cars.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Japanese_used_vehicle_exporting

The cost of yearly safety inspections escalates with each year of a car's age. After about ten years, the cost of inspection is usually about the same as what the vehicle was worth. So the car ends up being exported, despite still being in (usually) very good condition (as a result of the strict safety inspections).
,,,,,
So Japanese people put up with being forced to keep buying new cars. Many can't afford that, so they use whatever else transportation is available.

Laws such as this do not make Japanese trains more efficient, it only makes them the only option for more people. So it 'looks' like everybody there loves trains.

>>328863

What exactly do those laws have to do with the train's efficiency?

Oh wait, I get it, you're a butthurt Murifat. Continue with the butthurt.

>>328856

Because 'Murika can't into the concept of "comfort" or "efficiency" and "public transportation" in the same sentence. Those rusting hunks of metal you call trains wouldn't even pass a safety inspection anywhere else in the world, let alone be acceptable to passengers. If rail abroad was as shitty as it was in America no one would ever even dream of using it.

MURIKA BIG
JAPAN RITTLE

It's that fucking simple. The poor folk are slammed into cities and depend on transportation for 'work'.

Poor people and students take the bus.

>>328873
>What exactly do those laws have to do with the train's efficiency?
>Oh wait, I get it, you're a butthurt Murifat. Continue with the butthurt.
No butthurt--I live in a suburban/rural area. The only traffic jams in my town is at the shopping mall around Christmas. I live ~30 mins drive from a big city and visit occasionally for various reasons, but haven't ever had any desire to live there.

In Japan, its simple: make owning a car impossible for more people, and WOW!!! Look at them use that public transit!
Golly, our Forced Public Transit must really be efficient, look at all these people [stuck] using it! We are surely all ingeniouses!

As for worrying about traffic jams in cities,,,, don't.
Everyone in those traffic jams has a choice on where they can work and live, and they chose to work in the city and live somewhere else. The only way to eliminate urban rush-hour traffic jams is to take away one of three things: the right to choose where to live, the right to choose where to work, or the right to own your own personal transportation.

I'd prefer the government not make any of those choices for me, thank you. If that makes me different from the rest of the world, I can live with that.

work loading plants onto trains.

>>328899
>>328856

>Not butthurt

I beg to differ. All you did was confirm yourself as one of the retarded "BIG GOVERNMEN' IS TAIKEN AWAY MUH FREEDOMS" 'Muritards. Continue turning your country into the shithole of the first world, it's rather amusing for us to watch. But of course, how can a place with so much freedom be a shithole? It contradicts everything Bill O'Rielly said.

Japan and other mass transit in Asia runs on a more logical distance based fare system. The shorter the ride, you pay less; the longer the ride you pay more.

Over in the US everyone pays the same price no matter how far or shorter the distance travelled. No shit it's not profitable.

>>328862
European mass transit models are not profitable. They make no money at all.

Only the Asian mass transit systems work as a business model earning over 100% in farebox recovery.

The answer is simple: it's a viable business run by private companies (much to a chagrin of pundits who say mass transit is unprofitable) based on a distance based fare system.

>>328909
I think this is one of the largest problems with US public transit.

The MBTA is talking about raising subway fares from $1.70 to $3.00. 3 DOLLARS? Don't get me wrong, I wouldn't mind having to pay $3 (or more) when I travel inbound from the very end of the red line, but if I'm downtown and I want to travel a few stops down.. I'm fucking walking. I'm not paying three bucks for that. They're going to lose a lot of business, I think.

A distance based system is the way to go. I don't know why officials don't see that.

Umm, so who cares if public transporation isn't profitable? Why does everything have to be profitable. If the US took a fraction of what it spends on military and invested in a sweet infrastructure, we wouldn't even have to talk about profitability. Fuck the car economy, enjoy driving when gas prices start pushing $5/gal

>>328931
Do you think profitability is a bad thing?

If public transit systems actually ran a profit, there would be extra money for better service, equipment that's actually repaired, etc. I agree with you though, if we took all of our ridiculous spending and used it on infrastructure, we'd be better off as well.

>>328931
Profitable transit involves even and high density urban space around it. Not only is contemporary American and European planned urban space not even in passenger supply and demand, it's often explicitly planned to maximize car use. If there's separate residential and business districts, that's massive amounts of uneven passenger trips that destroy (transit) occupancy. With some care you could even plan industrial plants mixed in with business and residential buildings.

Asian megacities are either centrally planned around primary transit lines or organically grown around primary transit lines. So were early European and American cities before car-happy planners caught up.

>>328938
I think that given how the transport system is intrinsic to modern life in most cities it should not be a profitable one. The costs should only cover expenses and improvements to the system itself.
This would allow both a decent price and quality

>>328940
>The costs should only cover expenses and improvements to the system itself
And you need the system to be profitable so that it can actually afford these improvements, no? Just enough profit so that it can pay for these things on its own. I'm not saying Donald Trump should run a subway and make millions off of it.

>>328944
Not technically profit. When the need for improvements come, the core value should be increased to allow them to be made. Afterwards if not needed anymore (and if there's no inflation) the values could lower again.

Profitable by definition infers that someone is able to gather more money than spent and use it outside the given system (most times a company). The transport system should always have $0 balance.

Nowadays, it's run by donald trump alikes which profit in every single ticket sold and use it buying luxury houses and other niceties.

Please note, i'm not against profit or a communist in any manner. Is just that transport is so important that using it for profit is like running a police department for profit, and most people think the latter as an absurd but not the former

I believe it's partially because Asian countries dont have as many entitled assholes who believe they deserve free services.

Simple. Europe and Japan's cultures aren't as tied to cars as America's culture is.

And as this thread demonstrates, one of the influences of the car culture is that anyone who doesn't own a car is poor. It's so incredibly pervasive that people will drive a car to go five blocks to pick up something that can fit in a backpack because they don't want to look like they can't afford a car.

The other influence is how the cultures view their governments, and the level of interaction the people have with their political systems. By and large, Europeans and the Japanese don't have the adversarial relationship with their governments as Americans do; Ameicans, I've found, are largely apolitical, only caring about politics during Presidential elections and scandals, which leads to them believing that the government can't do anything right.

This doesn't make the reality of their governments any better, but it definitely helps matters because Americans take it for granted that they can't change anything, while a European or Japanese might write a letter to their representative.

>>328856
Population density leading to more condensed demand for transportation and lack of infrastructure for cars.

>>328875
>Implying that the US doesn't have the world's strictest safety standards for passenger rail
>Implying that these ridiculous safety standards aren't part of the reason that rail transit isn't viable in the US

>>328909
>Live in the DC area
>Be very familiar with distance based fares
I don't think you know what you're talking about.

>>329013

BWAHAHAH no. You really don't know what you're talking about, do you, The US has by far the most lax regulations of any first world country. The reason why there is no efficient commuter rail here is because of the government's lax restrictions on freight railway's handling of commuter trains, which leads to delays of six hours or more on average. Go do some research before posting idiot.

>>328909
>Everyone in America pays same rate, regardless of distance
>WMATA
>BART
Yeah, no

>>329074
It's true. FRA regulations are entirely different from the rest of the world. Buff strength vs. crumple zones. Inevitable head-on crash vs. crash avoidance.

You essentially need to completely redesign any standard vehicle for use in the US. Or get a pricey exception from the FRA.

There is few, very little "public" transit in Japan. Most of the mass transit systems there are private companies that run for profit. They are based on a more logical distance based system, and their main motive is to make money for shareholders who hold these companies' stocks listed on the Tokyo Stock Exchange.

Over here, you don't see NYMTA or MBTA on the NYSE do you?

That's the difference. Japan privatizes mass transit, the US clings onto it by taxing everyone.

If public transit sucks and owning a car isn't an option due to high gas prices, then just get a scooter or a motorcycle.

Even a Harley Davidson gets better MPG than a Toyota Prius hybrid, they cost way less than a car, and unlike public transit, you still get to go when you want.

Problem solved.

Because in America, the people who run transit are so lazy and take the easy way out by charging everyone the same flat rate fare no matter what the distance.

In contrast, every transit agency in Asia figured out that it's a stupid model destined to fail and they moved onto distance fares.

>>329089

Plus you can attach a fairing to most scooters and motorcycles that will give you much, much higher mileage.

Look up the Craig Vetter fuel economy runs and then weep at how shitty the fuel economy of most vehicles really is.

>>329015
>>329077
Oh wow, two whole examples. The majority of the country uses a flat fare system. And a lot of those systems also have a flat monthly rate for unlimited rides.

>>329090
This. I remember reading an article and the guy said "If I did my job like the officials at the MBTA did their jobs, I'd be fired".

>>329090
Americans sucks at math
Mormons better at math*
Asians better at math

* http://www.standard.net/stories/2011/12/27/uta-studies-distance-based-fares

Even the Mormons figured out that distance fares are the way to go. Figures.

>>329126
The only major systems that use flat fares are either local systems (NYC Subway/Bus), all the commuter railroads nearby have distance based fares!