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JR rails makes an important part of its benefits from the huge commercial centers (Atrée & others) they run in their stations. That's a model that works in Japa
by adev_ 8y ago
JR rails makes an important part of its benefits from the huge commercial centers (Atrée & others) they run in their stations. That's a model that works in Japan, but cannot run everywhere. Not every country is a tiny island with such a dense urbanisation.
- Silhouette 8y agoI read an interesting article about this a while back. Something distinctive about the Japanese rail culture is that they build lots of communal facilities right next to their stations. For example, people routinely stop and do their shopping on the way home from work, even though they're getting home by train (though this idea isn't just about shops). Compare that to typical Western railway stations, where a huge amount of the prime real estate right next to the trains is used for giant car parks, and you can see that the success of their model is no accident. Of course, we couldn't trivially adopt the same strategy in the West. Unlike the Japanese, we haven't been designing our towns and cities around this principle for a long time, and as the parent comment notes, we also don't have the same density. That means we do need ways for people to get to the station from the surrounding area. Often good alternatives to the car are still lacking in the West, which then creates an unfortunate chicken and egg scenario. But that doesn't mean the Japanese model isn't potentially better than ours, if only we could find a viable path from one to the other.
- magduf 8y agoIt's not just Japan. German train stations are also mini-malls, frequently with grocery stores in them, along with restaurants, clothing stores, etc. (depending on the size of the station of course).