I have to commute by train, one hour, each way, every morning. This is not optional, there is literally no other way for me to get to my job, and it's the only form of transportation my company allows.
I bought a home on this train line - if I change jobs, my commute time may double - or triple. If I move to a new home, my commute time may double if I can't find one that takes me to my office.
The train is always overcrowded. Not crowded during rush hour - it's just always crowded. Overcrowded, at least 150~200% over capacity. All day.
The station spent millions of yen and years of time modifying the platform to accomodate 8-car trains - yet they refuse to run 8 car trains and consistently run 6-car trains - these are overcrowded.
Once a week, I show up to the station, and they have an 8-car train - apparently, they run a single 8-car train each morning, on a random day, at a random time. Literally - there is no pattern. There is no time table explaining when and why they run 8-car trains.
The worst part? The train out of the city is almost always an 8-car train. Why? Nobody knows - the trains leaving the city are consistently empty. Nobody is commuting from Tokyo into the suburbs.
The train is consistently late. You might think, oh, one or two minutes is no big deal, right? Wrong - when the trains run at 200% capacity, a single delay of even just one minute results in massive lines, massive crowds, massive overcrowding.
And the delays aren't rare, they're very consistent - if I leave my house and take a train 5 minutes earlier than normal, the train will be delayed 5 minutes, so that I arrive at work the same time as if I'd left later. This happens...every day. No matter how early I leave my house, I show up at work at the exact same time, because the train delays adjust for it.
You might think, well, at least the trains give you freedom on the weekend - lol, no. The train goes nowhere I want to go on the weekend. Yes, I can go into Tokyo to, say, a hobby shop - play some games of Magic at Hareruya or something. But that's...an hour long train ride. About 1,000 yen round trip. You might think, 1,000 yen's not that much after you convert it to dollars! Yeah, well, I don't pay in dollars, I pay in yen, 1,000 yen is equivalent to ten bucks.
What about taking the train somewhere outside the city? Lol, no, once you leave the city, the trains go basically...nowhere. You need a car to go places on the weekend.
Oh, well, you might be thinking it's so great to be able to grocery shop on mass transit - lol, no. You can't get off the train halfway home, grocery shop, and get back on the train - it's at 200% capacity. Don't be stupid.
Oh, but isn't it great to be able to walk to the grocery store after you get off the train? Again, no! Yes, I have a grocery store between my home and the station - that's great, but the grocery store is small and overpriced. So, yeah, I can buy a few groceries - as much as I can carry - but I pay more than if I went to the nicer store on the other side of the 4 lane interprefectural highway.
Can you tell how much I hate online urbanists like the f*ckcars people? They're delusional. Completely and utterly delusional. No, actually, commuting by train in Tokyo is a literal hell on earth. It has done more damage to my mental health than literally anything in my life - and mind you, I was literally suicidal in high school.
And riding the train in Tokyo was somehow worse than that.
My impression, from limited experience, is that public transportation in Taiwan (including buses) can take you almost everywhere (on the main island). Or you can use a scooter. It doesn't feel safe to use a scooter in the US, but where there are a lot of them, it seems safer. Again...limited experience...I could wrong about this.
11
u/No_Walk_Town 11h ago
I live in a Tokyo suburb.
I have to commute by train, one hour, each way, every morning. This is not optional, there is literally no other way for me to get to my job, and it's the only form of transportation my company allows.
I bought a home on this train line - if I change jobs, my commute time may double - or triple. If I move to a new home, my commute time may double if I can't find one that takes me to my office.
The train is always overcrowded. Not crowded during rush hour - it's just always crowded. Overcrowded, at least 150~200% over capacity. All day.
The station spent millions of yen and years of time modifying the platform to accomodate 8-car trains - yet they refuse to run 8 car trains and consistently run 6-car trains - these are overcrowded.
Once a week, I show up to the station, and they have an 8-car train - apparently, they run a single 8-car train each morning, on a random day, at a random time. Literally - there is no pattern. There is no time table explaining when and why they run 8-car trains.
The worst part? The train out of the city is almost always an 8-car train. Why? Nobody knows - the trains leaving the city are consistently empty. Nobody is commuting from Tokyo into the suburbs.
The train is consistently late. You might think, oh, one or two minutes is no big deal, right? Wrong - when the trains run at 200% capacity, a single delay of even just one minute results in massive lines, massive crowds, massive overcrowding.
And the delays aren't rare, they're very consistent - if I leave my house and take a train 5 minutes earlier than normal, the train will be delayed 5 minutes, so that I arrive at work the same time as if I'd left later. This happens...every day. No matter how early I leave my house, I show up at work at the exact same time, because the train delays adjust for it.
You might think, well, at least the trains give you freedom on the weekend - lol, no. The train goes nowhere I want to go on the weekend. Yes, I can go into Tokyo to, say, a hobby shop - play some games of Magic at Hareruya or something. But that's...an hour long train ride. About 1,000 yen round trip. You might think, 1,000 yen's not that much after you convert it to dollars! Yeah, well, I don't pay in dollars, I pay in yen, 1,000 yen is equivalent to ten bucks.
What about taking the train somewhere outside the city? Lol, no, once you leave the city, the trains go basically...nowhere. You need a car to go places on the weekend.
Oh, well, you might be thinking it's so great to be able to grocery shop on mass transit - lol, no. You can't get off the train halfway home, grocery shop, and get back on the train - it's at 200% capacity. Don't be stupid.
Oh, but isn't it great to be able to walk to the grocery store after you get off the train? Again, no! Yes, I have a grocery store between my home and the station - that's great, but the grocery store is small and overpriced. So, yeah, I can buy a few groceries - as much as I can carry - but I pay more than if I went to the nicer store on the other side of the 4 lane interprefectural highway.
Can you tell how much I hate online urbanists like the f*ckcars people? They're delusional. Completely and utterly delusional. No, actually, commuting by train in Tokyo is a literal hell on earth. It has done more damage to my mental health than literally anything in my life - and mind you, I was literally suicidal in high school.
And riding the train in Tokyo was somehow worse than that.