
How the Shinkansen bullet train made Tokyo into the monster it is today - oska
http://www.theguardian.com/cities/2014/sep/30/-sp-shinkansen-bullet-train-tokyo-rail-japan-50-years
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patio11
Note that the Tokaido shinkansen is only profitable in terms of OpEx -- paying
drivers, running stations, buying legendarily bad coffee, paying for
electricity and car maintenance, etc. It relies on government-provided CapEx
-- laying thousands of miles of earthquake-resistant track, in some cases
requiring drilling through mountains to get from A to B because curving is
difficult.

The CapEx cost, which the government essentially wrote off when they
privatized JR, was north of half a trillion dollars.

~~~
ekianjo
Well, in all countries with popular train networks, the profitability/cost
index is totally opaque. It's fairly obvious that it can't be as profitable as
having a fleet of planes. The sheer maintenance of high speed trains + their
kilometers of tracks render them very costly per mile.

~~~
cromwellian
Airports and Air Traffic systems also cost money. Several tens of billions of
dollars were spent on SFO+LAX+SJC+OAK+SAN upgrades in California in the last
few decades. If you add up the CapEx, it's on par with the CapEx for high
speed rail. Operationally, the FAA budget is $15 billion a year, the TSA is $7
billion per year, so minimally, $22 billion in government subsidy.

~~~
dworin
Air traffic systems aren't a good analogy - for the most part, they're funded
through user fees. Eighty percent of the FAA budget [1] is funded through the
Airport and Airway Trust Fund, which is based on taxes and service fees levied
on operators and passengers. This was designed to allow the agency to grow
with the size of the industry, without taking over the federal budget. It's
also more progressive, since air travelers are generally wealthier, it makes
it so you don't have to subsidize travel for the rich with taxes on the poor
and middle class.

Airport construction follows a similar system. Most airports in the United
States are public-private partnerships. They issue Airport Revenue Bonds,
which are similar to municipal bonds from a tax perspective, but they're
backed by airport revenues, not municipal tax revenue.[2] The airport
authority has to pay back the debt through the fees they collect from
operators or concessions. The latter is why everything from bottled water to
rental cars is more expensive in an airport. It's not just that they have a
captive audience, it's that concession sales actually pay for the operation
and expansion of the facility.

In both cases - the FAA and capital expenditures - it's mostly paid for by the
users, not the taxpayer.

[1] -
[https://www.faa.gov/about/office_org/headquarters_offices/ap...](https://www.faa.gov/about/office_org/headquarters_offices/apl/aatf/media/AATF_Fact_Sheet.pdf)
[2] -
[http://www.nap.edu/openbook.php?record_id=14041&page=12](http://www.nap.edu/openbook.php?record_id=14041&page=12)

~~~
cromwellian
Well, the same excuses have been made about the road system, that it's funded
by gas taxes, but when people crunched the numbers, it turned out it's only
about 50%.

Since the subsidy you link to, varied between 70% and 80%, it could still be
the case that the Airport system in California got subsidies within a small
multiplicative factor over it's entire lifespan compared to the proposed costs
of the high speed rail system.

The objections to high speed rail IMHO, aren't 100% based on economics or
funding, because other things have gotten massive subsidies, they're also
based on a kind of weird political tribe association people have against
trains.

Let me quote George Will as an example: "To progressives, the best thing about
railroads is that people riding them are not in automobiles, which are
subversive of the deference on which progressivism depends. Automobiles go
hither and yon, wherever and whenever the driver desires, without timetables.
Automobiles encourage people to think they—unsupervised, untutored, and
unscripted—are masters of their fates. The automobile encourages people in
delusions of adequacy, which make them resistant to government by experts who
know what choices people should make.

Time was, the progressive cry was “Workers of the world unite!” or “Power to
the people!” Now it is less resonant: “All aboard!”"

So, to some people, trains are a Euro-socialist kind of thing, anti-freedom.

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tsuyoshi
This article is somewhat confused. The author seems to be asserting that Tokyo
is so populous because more people commute by Shinkansen than by other means,
but that would be totally false. The number of people commuting by non-
Shinkansen trains is much, much higher. And how can the long-term shift of
business from Osaka to Tokyo be explained by the Shinkansen? There are far
more people living west of Tokyo (i.e., in the direction of Osaka) than north
of it, so I don't see how the Shinkansen, on its own, shifts the center of
gravity toward Tokyo. Or what about the growth of the west side of the
Yamanotesen (i.e. Ikebukuro, Shinjuku, and Shibuya), which the Shinkansen
doesn't even serve? The Shinkansen is great and all, but this article doesn't
make any sense to me.

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gcv
> The Shinkansen is expensive; with the rise of low-cost carriers, any train
> trip that takes more than two hours from Tokyo is less cost-effective than
> flying.

Nonsense. Narita airport is about an hour away from central Tokyo (by one of
two express trains, probably longer by car), and Haneda about 30-40 minutes
(by monorail, probably longer by car). Then you get to deal with being in an
airport. Both run more smoothly than the ones in the US, but still require
early arrival for boarding. Flights are _far_ more likely to have delays. Then
you get to deal with another airport again after landing, especially if you
checked luggage.

Contrast with the shinkansen: trains leave every 10-15 minutes from the center
of the city, have better seats (and green or first-class costs a fraction of a
first-class plane ticket), and no dealing with airport security or lines at
all.

It would take a 4-5 hour trip minimum for me to fly rather than take a train
in Japan.

~~~
rtpg
I agree with your conclusion, but the first-hand experience of taking a local
flight in Japan is pretty sureal. There are flights almost every 10 minutes
between Tokyo and Fukuoka, for example. I wasn't even asked for id before
getting on the plane.

It feels a lot like a train except it flies and it's a lot harder to bring a
gun onto it.

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s4sharpie
While Japan continues to build and push the boundaries of train travel
(regardless of the cost), other countries (USA, Australia) get mired in cost
benefit analysis and special interest morass on any big nation building train
works. It is interesting to note that the original lines are now considered
'super profitable'. It would be fascinating to see the original cost benefit
analysis (if any was done) when they started their journey 50 years ago.

~~~
seanmcdirmid
Outside of the northeast, train travel isn't that feasible, and Japan had the
right population densities before they built the first shinkansen (it helps
that the country is mostly mountainous with limited areas for population that
are quite close to each other). And even the northeast lacks much of the
population concentrations of Japan. The density problem could be much worse in
Australia.

Even in a place like China the benefits are dubious. It is still often more
cost effective to fly from Beijing to Shanghai than take the bullet train.

~~~
new299
It's more cost effective in Japan to fly from Tokyo to Osaka than to take the
Shinkansen too (Shinkansen costs ~140USD, flights 120USD).

However flying is a lot more time consuming and inconvenient. The Shinkansen
system integrates well with the regular train/subway system. And of course
serves locations without airports.

~~~
minikomi
It costs a bit to get to/from the airport too, whereas with shinkansen you
have all-you-can-ride JR within the city you arrive at, until you exit the
final gate. I'd say there comparable in price.

~~~
new299
It depends where you are. In areas not well served by the JR you can end up
spending quite a bit on the Metro. But you're right the costs are comparable.

However given that, I think convenience is the deciding factor in the
Shinkansen's favor.

