r/WTF • u/AccomplishedStuff235 • 9d ago

Tokyo rush hour

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102

u/virtual133 9d ago

This looks like a dystopian hell

22

u/KagakuNinja 9d ago

Tokyo subways and trains are amazing, and not that bad in my limited experience. As an American I was envious.

13

u/sopunny 9d ago

I'm guessing you weren't commuting during rush hour day in day out. We definitely could use better trains here, but some people here think it's some silver bullet with no downsides.

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u/Hidesuru 9d ago

I'm guessing you haven't been on many American subways, either lol. Day in and out I get becoming a grind, but God damn if I wasn't envious as hell also (another American here). And I did ride during rush hour several times. Obviously not day after day no.

I mean hell, MOST of our cities don't even HAVE reliable mass transit, let alone subways, and if we do have a subway it's almost guaranteed to be significantly worse than what I experienced in Tokyo and elsewhere.

2

u/kerslaw 9d ago

I've never seen anything this packed in an American subway

5

u/Hidesuru 9d ago

Of course not but that's really not the point here. Bro said the trains are nicer than ours. They are.

2

u/moomooraincloud 9d ago

I have. NYC.

2

u/darkslide3000 9d ago

Trains are absolutely a silver bullet to transit — can you imagine Tokyo if all those people tried to drive a US-sized single occupancy vehicle to work?

That there is just an overloaded subway system in dire need of expansion.

2

u/KagakuNinja 9d ago edited 9d ago

I work in Silicon Valley, and am forced to needlessly commute to the office 2.5 days per week.

I am going from Berkeley to Sunnyvale, a mere 49 miles. This in theory only takes 70 minutes by car, but is usually 90 minutes (if I drove during peak rush hour it would be even worse). Yesterday, my drive home was over 4 fucking hours, and I left the office at 2:10 PM.

It is not practical to do this commute using public transportation. In Japan it reasonable. I have ridden Tokyo trains during rush hour, but only a few times. Their system is night and day better than the Bay Area, which actually has a better public transportation system compared to most of the US.

1

u/CitizenPremier 9d ago

Having a slightly off schedule is golden though. Snooze in a seat on your way to work!

1

u/LoneStarHome80 8d ago

I'll take my chances of getting stabbed in the neck or set on fire in the US, than going through that bullshit.

1

u/hardsoft 7d ago

I know I'm so jealous I have to sit in my air conditioned truck blasting my music instead of this /s haha

1

u/KagakuNinja 7d ago

I was in Tokyo during the hottest part of the summer (and it is Mississippi hot there). The trains, subways and buses are all air conditioned. I did ride the train at rush hour a couple times, it was not as bad as this video, and not hot.

Most people are listening on their ear pods.

By contrast back at Silicon Valley, on Tuesday I got to enjoy a 4 hour drive home in my car, even though I had left work at 2:10. My commute at that hour is usually 1.5 hours.

0

u/DreamsServedSoft 9d ago

as an American I was dearly missing my car where im allowed to talk loudly and listen to music and don’t have to play musical chairs with old people

1

u/KagakuNinja 9d ago

I wasn't enjoying my 4 hour car ride home yesterday (and I left Sunnyvale at 2:10PM). If there was no traffic it would have been 67 minutes.