Taking the blue line out of O’Hare airport and we are immediately being yanked around in every direction. Whereas in Tokyo, the curvature of the track and maximum speed inputted by the driver were linked.
In Tokyo, whenever I saw a long row of cushioned seats I thought to myself we could never have this in Chicago. It wouldn’t last one day before being barfed or pissed upon.
In Tokyo, Metro trains are equipped with multiple TV screens displaying the next station, number of minutes to arrival, and a diagram of optimal exits in relation to your current car number. In Chicago, we have two or three sheets of cardstock, that are occasionally not even lined up correctly. That’s the map.
The worst part is, JR is privatized, and they still manage to provide this high quality of service. How??
They have a collective culture.
The individualistic nature of North America (and some Europeans countries) works amazingly in certain situations (like driving innovation and competition) but absolutely terribly in other situations (like respect for public amenities or banding together in a pandemic)
What I’m hear from this is collective cultures help societies in ways that matter and individualistic cultures help societies that don’t.
And I don’t disagree. And before someone jumps in with an “innovation” argument, just know that most major innovation was done by public entities, with public research, funded by public taxes/grants.
Japanese work culture is some of the worst in the world.
I’m not really talking about money when I say innovation. It’s more about how much individuals are willing to push themselves into uncomfortable situations rather than where the funding is coming from.
The Japanese have a saying “the nail that sticks out gets hammered down” and unfortunately this concept is drilled into them through their entire education system. This means you see fewer innovators willing to do the unorthodox things that can end up with unicorn results.
I worked in the loop for about 1.5 years 2016-2017, and I swear it turned me against trains. The noise (both on the train and near the tracks), and the vibration were unbearable.
My team was on the 4th floor of the red CNA building, which was the floor that was said to be high enough that it wasn’t specially soundproofed.
We had to interrupt our meetings SEVERAL times every hour because of the noise of passing trains.
4th floor wasn’t soundproofed? Even though sound travels through air very well, even to the 15th floor of some buildings. That’s unfortunate. Soundproofing buildings is an area we really suck at. Especially residential.
Yeah, the difference was VERY noticeable, when we asked our CNA co-workers about it they were like, “yeah, this floor is above the height requirement for soundproofing”. Apparently it was an issue because the corporate data center was on the next floor up and there were issues with vibration sensors going off :-)
NY/NJ here, but I felt the same way after visiting Tokyo. Another metro system I was really impressed with was Taipei’s; the trains were clean, safe and ran frequently.
It was so depressing coming home to our public transportation, especially because the airport connections are poor and make you cranky immediately after deboarding.
Even with the decreased ridership right now some stations and lines remain congested, and the narrower platforms can feel unsafe when there’s crowding. There’s a persistent stank during this swampy time of year and a layer of dust, skin cells and/or unidentified garbage particles on the tracks that cleaning doesn’t ever really fix. There’s just more vomit and pee to clean in the first place. Okay I’m being a little dramatic but it really do be like that sometimes.
Sure the newest stations are nicer, but the cost and the time it takes is crazy. And it’s impossible to retrofit most of the existing stations with new technology so we’re stuck having to work around this old infrastructure. Meanwhile, there are a lot of neighborhoods that are underserved. At least we finally have contactless readers. The technology has been around for almost two decades but better late than never? Sorry, this is becoming a huge rant but public transportation in the US is such a joke.
narrower platforms can feel unsafe when there’s crowding
Man I love Tokyo Metro’s platform screen doors
We got back from Tokyo recently as well! There’s a very apparent difference in culture that I think contributes to this. I’m not Japanese nor am I super experienced with Japanese culture so I can’t comfortablely speak on what those differences are. However we also can’t ignore the fact that public transit in general is massively underfunded across the states, not just in Chicago. We’re car-centric first, and public-transit-based like, fourth is the way I see it. Not that I’m happy about that ofc, I take the train and the bus everywhere I can, but that’s just the reality of the situation right now. Tokyo’s train system is very obviously much better funded than Chicago’s, and the infrastructure is built to support that.
