Why Tokyo Is Insanely Well Designed

Why Tokyo Is Insanely Well Designed

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[indigos]

As someone from Tokyo, please remember that there are hard working people behind the safe and precise transportation in Japan. Their service should not be taken for granted.

[snowrexilium]

I've been to Tokyo few years back, and I can confirm that the public transport there are really great. it is so easy to navigate between places even if you have language barrier, to the point I'd say you almost couldn't get lost if you navigate in Tokyo.

[samiliorian]

I've lived in Tokyo for 3 years and I can say it is outstandingly well designed and highly livable. Tokyo is a city you can just walk for hours, and given its density, you always have access to shops, restaurants etc. The train system is also basically the best in the world.

[MT-ubcq]

Been living in Tokyo since I was born but never thought of these stuff. What I love about Tokyo the most is the number and cleanliness of the public toilets, and all kinds of food you can choose to eat, for a fairly cheap price

[CheapCharlieChronicles]

Great video but must nitpick a quick fact correction, the Tokyo subway system is only a small part of the train system and only covers a small part of the city. There are about 8 other train systems in the Tokyo metro area including the huge JR East train system which has elevated lines throughout the metro area. The subway only covers a small part of central Tokyo. These are all separate systems but share a same payment mechanism the Suica card which also makes transferring between systems easier.

[asdsdjfasdjxajiosdqw]

If a city is car dependent, we should consider it a complete failure. Walkability, cycleability and public transport is where it's at.

[bootlegga]

I lived in Japan 20 years ago and the train/subway network in Tokyo was staggering. You could to almost any intersection in the city if you were willing to make a transfer or two. And it was affordable, fast, clean and super efficient, and a model for urban subway systems. I wish we had similar networks like that in Canada.

I would argue the worst part about driving in Tokyo was not the traffic, which was far better than LA or Paris IMHO. It was finding parking, which was hard to find and very expensive.

[PixelProphetGenius]

I lived in Tokyo before the 2011 earthquake. I went home drunk one time, took a seat on a beach when I got off the train. When I arrived home, I realize my bag was missing. I went back hurriedly and found my bag on the same beach. Tokyo subway is the best - efficient, clean and safe.

[junrosamura]

As someone living in Tokyo, the train is always the preferred method. However, I use my car to reach places trains cannot outside the greater tokyo area. Besides, everything you need is almost always around a train station. Since drinking and driving is illegal, this also forces everyone who wants to enjoy the night life to take the train since most bars are around train stations. Also, the majority of train stations have a shopping mall built on top of them or very near to them.

[yywaters]

The most notable memory from my brief time in Tokyo was when my dad accidentally left his backpack (with our passports) on one of the trains. We went to lost and found and told them what had happened, and in 15 minutes the backpack was returned. Incredible

[odndnrw]

Tokyo’s train network is astounding. I was able to use it to get home after many nights of drinking and partying in different parts of the city. The Yamanote line is very special to me as if you fall asleep on it you might wake up just before your station, having unknowingly ridden the whole loop.

[jetsunthinley]

In the whole country of Japan, they managed to build skyscrapers and high-rise buildings on soils prone to liquefaction. They have some of the best structural engineers on the entire planet.

[mfaizsyahmi]

Additional things the video doesn't touch:

- Tokyo's many transport hubs came about from a previous ban on railways from going inside the Yamanote Loop, so they all terminate on the Yamanote Line and the areas became CBDs. Kinda like how London's King's Cross, Euston, Waterloo, London Bridge came to being.

- Zoning, which the video almost touches. Japanese zoning is way more flexible, and allows for mixed use by default, thus making doing chores really convenient. In this regard it's actually less designed than the overly rigid Euclidian zoning that pervades America.

- Transit service patterns, which should be more important than the trains as the video focused heavily about. While the metro stops at all stations, JR has some express services on the commuter lines. The private rail companies have even more express service patterns.

- And the creme de la crop that makes Tokyo's transit network #1 is the integration in infrastructure. Many private railways have compatible track gauge, loading gauge, and electrification with each other and the metro, or rather, the metro specced their lines to be compatible with the private railways on the periphery. This allows the metro to physically connect and integrate their lines and stations with the private railways, resulting in through running between the lines.
Therefore, metro trains can run beyond their trackage and onto the private railways and goes into the suburbs, and likewise private railway trains can go beyond their termini and into the metro tunnels in the center of the city, oftentines to the other end and onwards onto a _third_ railway company's tracks. This reduce the need to transfer between trains, thus help avoid overcrowding on stations. Not that those didn't happen though.
On the Asakusa Line, you could have like 6 companies using the metro tracks, including the inter-airport service between Haneda and Narita simply because the rails are physically connected via the Asakusa Line.

- Lastly, let's touch on storm management. Edogawa River was manmade, diverting water from Sumida River which flows through the city center. Further upstream, they diverted the majority of the flow from Tone River eastward to Ibaraki instead of southward to Edo Bay, artificially making Tone River the longest in Japan. And, of course, the giant underground cistern.
That said, parts of Tokyo are actually below sea level and would be affected by sea level rise.

[mosswoodbury]

This also really is not limited to Tokyo. I stayed with a friend in a suburb (a subway accessible suburb, of course) outside of Osaka a couple years back. It was just so easy to get anywhere . When we took a trip to Tokyo, I was amazed that the same card worked. Imagine that in America

[Martinit]

I think it's underappreciated how typical Japanese train stations (the larger ones) are also shopping centers. For example Osaka Station and its surroundings are just mind blowing.
What I found confusing though is to figure out which type of train to take - so many different ones.

[Arewmon]

My entire life I grew up in the US seeing cities as chaotic messes that were noisy, crowded, and dangerous. I saw public transit as inefficient, irregular, and similarly unsafe.

Then I lived 4 months in the largest megacity in the world, and realized within a week that I was falling in love with an urban center for the first time. Everything was efficient, and for the first time in my life I found myself in a place where there were locations I wanted to go to, and I actually had the means and freedom to go there. Public transit was cheap, easy, and stress free (as long as I didn't need to travel during the morning rush). I wasn't bound by a car, or traffic, or parking spaces, or the fear that I was going to get into an accident. On top of everything else streets were also very clean despite there being far fewer trash can than anywhere I had ever been to in the USA.

I wanna add a disclaimer here that I'm not just a starry eyed foreigner who only sees the good in Japan. The society has as many issues as any other in the world. There are many legitimate reasons why many young (and now aging) people become hikikomori and just don't want to have to go outside and deal with the stresses of the outside world. On the topic of urban planning, however, Japan just cannot be beat -- Tokyo cannot be beat (although people I know who have been to Osaka scoff and beg to differ).

[oscardelgado]

Nice video, but I do have one major issue: the title is totally misleading. You focused entirely on describing general aspects of the public transport system, but that does not tell me why Tokyo is well designed. At most, what one can gather from this video is that they have a good public transport system.

I expected you to talk about urban planning, how the layout of the subway lines and the location of the stations make for a more efficient operation of the subway system, how other means of public transportation make up for the deficiencies of cars and subway (beside cost), city regulations regarding location and size of certain types of buildings, placement of public areas, etc.

[wut]

It's so interesting how Tokyo, Japan has so few cars in comparison to its population, when Japan itself has a booming car manufacturing industry with Honda, Toyota, Mitsubishi, Suzuki, and so many more car companies.

[Estenberg]

My first night in Tokyo (with serious jet-lag) I walked everywhere, all night long. I had no idea where I was going. I just walked. And in retrospect, I did it right, staying on well-lit commercial nightlife streets and crowded ally-ways. I played Pachinko in a colorful bright-lights gaming area straight out of Blade Runner. I ate snacks from carts. I passed many Izakayas and bars, as well crowds, couples, singles and hawkers. At one point I even entered an area filled with strip clubs and little hotels. If it was a red-light district then it was like none I'd ever seen: no street walkers, no adult bookstores, and no porn-movie screening-bunkers. But it was lively so I went into a club. I won't describe what I saw, but the scene was loud, crowded and crazy. After that I continued my walk until dawn, when I ended up at a Shinto Shrine set in a huge beautiful garden-park. I rang the bell, ate a snack at a noodle cart, and took the METRO back to my hotel where a morning buffet awaited (along with my mother). Later, after reviewing a map, I realized that I had covered many miles and numerous designated areas; even though it was just a tiny portion of Tokyo Metropolitan. So, is Tokyo a good walking city? For me it was. It really was.

[BAKCHUNGHEE]

As a korean guy, I LOVE THE DESIGN OF JAPANESE CITIES!
It was a great honor to be able to visit Japan
I hope I can visit Japan again in the future