Comments on: Japan’s Highways

By: Johnny Anderson

Johnny Anderson — Sun, 02 Aug 2009 21:05:46 +0000

hi just spent 19 years writing a book and I can’t seem to find a website that will give me this info. Has anyone got any idea of the distance between Tokyo to Shimonoseki, cheers, Johnny Anderson.

johnnyboy1@rocketmail.com

By: Now This is a System Map - Seattle Transit Blog

Now This is a System Map - Seattle Transit Blog — Thu, 28 May 2009 07:22:34 +0000

[...] Now This is a System Map by Andrew Smith This is a fairly complete – to my knowledge – map of the passenger rail network in Tokyo and its suburbs. Here is pdf map of made by someone else that includes Tokyo and its suburbs, but not the its suburbs’ suburbs. I’ve been looking for a map like this for a long time, since there are more than a dozen train operators in the Tokyo area, and most system maps in Tokyo draw either just the center city subway network or just the map of a specific private rail operator’s network. There are several hundred stations on the map, and it shows the passenger rail network of an area about 1/3 bigger than King County (8,500 km² including water) where about 35 million people live (that’s about 20 times the population of King County). No wonder Tokyo gets away with a small highway system. [...]

By: Justin

Justin — Fri, 15 May 2009 00:37:48 +0000

Well, i’m not really a highway “fanatic”… I’m a cartographer and I just tend to see a lot of highways.

By: Andrew Smith

Andrew Smith — Sat, 18 Apr 2009 12:46:59 +0000

One last one, if someone tells you (as ben has to me) that cars haven’t become more fuel efficient over the years, because the model T got 20 mpg. Mention to them that this ~500 horsepower GT-R gets the same fuel economy as the 20 hp model t did

By: Andrew Smith

Andrew Smith — Sat, 18 Apr 2009 12:41:36 +0000

Is part of travelling the fun of not know what you’re doing? Just wondering. I speak semi-fluent Japanese (downgraded from fluent when I live here) and I see all these foreigners just confused all the time.

Are they having fun?

By: Andrew Smith

Andrew Smith — Sat, 18 Apr 2009 12:38:01 +0000

That was the car I drove!~

By: Andrew Smith

Andrew Smith — Sat, 18 Apr 2009 12:36:05 +0000

hahaha, never thought of it that way. But, to be fair, one way was a weekend drive, and those have been discounted to just ¥1000.

By: Oran

Oran — Sat, 18 Apr 2009 05:22:21 +0000

I saw it. The punctuality of public transport in Japan is amazing. I laughed at Jeremy Clarkson’s fiddling with the Japanese-voice GPS and racing though those ETC gates. You can watch it at http://videos.streetfire.net/video/Top-Gear-11×04-GTR-vs-1_179640.htm

The London one is also a fun one.

By: Zed

Zed — Fri, 17 Apr 2009 19:47:07 +0000

Eisenhower originally wanted to fund the interstate system with tolls, but his aides told him that tolls would never raise enough revenue to pay for the construction. Instead it was financed by bonds that would later be paid off by the gas tax. This had the effect, however, of making urban and suburban drivers subsidize (there’s that word again) the construction of the interstates. He was also against building interstates within urban areas, but he lost that battle too.

By: Stephen F

Stephen F — Fri, 17 Apr 2009 19:32:15 +0000

As far as cars go, pretty nice. Anyone watch the Top Gear episode about hsr/public transport versus highways and cars in Japan?

By: Mickymse

Mickymse — Fri, 17 Apr 2009 19:25:43 +0000

You should be proud, Andrew. Not only did you make a wise travel mode choice after weighing the options but, as your entry shows, you paid appropriately for the costs of that choice.

By: Joe G

Joe G — Fri, 17 Apr 2009 17:57:26 +0000

I’m loving the robocop. I really think I-5 should adopt the use of those. Fun!!

By: doug

doug — Fri, 17 Apr 2009 17:42:52 +0000

as a bicyclist bumping and jarring his way over the often hilariously bad seattle roads, i get green with envy when i watch youtube videos of folks cruising the unbelievably gorgeous tokyo streets. nary a hiccup.

By: Oran

Oran — Fri, 17 Apr 2009 16:57:28 +0000

Infrastructure crazy Japan seems like a civil engineer’s dream.

Everytime I see a photo of a Japanese road, it’s always nice and pristine. The paint is fresh and the pavement is dark and smooth. It looks like they resurface and repaint their roads every year.

By: Andrew Smith

Andrew Smith — Fri, 17 Apr 2009 14:59:49 +0000

With the tiny baby (she’s not soooo tiny, she’s 99% weight and height for American babies, and like twice the size of same-age japanese babies), I was not allowed to take the car to full potential, so it was never really as much fun as it could have been.

The bridge picture I took three weekends ago on a highway bus trip. So that’s being a good transit blogger.

By: joshuadf

joshuadf — Fri, 17 Apr 2009 14:57:58 +0000

Awesome post. As you probably know Japan is infrastructure crazy ($6.3 trillion from 1991-2008), so I suspect you are right that the expressways cost a fortune. On the bright side with the tolls and leasing the rest areas they currently pay for themselves. I don’t think there’s anything wrong with a highway system that gets used appropriately as long as there are also transit options.

Also for what it’s worth I bet a lot of people use non-toll roads to commute. When I lived in Fukuoka the city roads were always packed at rush hour even though there was a good bus system and decent subway. High parking and gas costs have to control that better than in the US, though.

By: Justin Bernard

Justin Bernard — Fri, 17 Apr 2009 14:53:42 +0000

Yeah, I wouldn’t mind taking a spin in that car.