It takes 3 minutes, 6 seconds for the Inokashira Line to turn around at Shibuya. (I timed it.) There's no lollygagging like American commuter rail.

To my eye, the key is that the Japanese trains get into the busy Shibuya terminal and then GTFO, whereas Metro-North uses Grand Central as a glorified train parking lot.

Ridership sources:

www.keio.co.jp/company/corp...

www.mta.info/document/170...

Keio Inokashira Line platforms, Tokyo

Keio Inokashira Line commuter rail, Shibuya, Tokyo:
-two tracks
-286,940 passengers/weekday

Grand Central Station, NYC (Metro North only):
-67 tracks
-175,574 passengers/weekday

Japanese transit is a marvel. We need to learn from them.

A collection of Japanese railway mascots (from an ad in Shibuya Station, Tokyo)

It matters to me more whether it can work politically - a way to disarm the hidebound fire marshals who insist on two stairs with all the floor plan issues that causes. If the answer is to bring back the fire escape, why not?

When I was a kid and we moved to the 'burbs, we rented first. Mom and Dad wanted to test out whether they liked the neighborhood, and then they eventually bought a place there when the house across the street went up for sale.

(cc: @stephenjacobsmith.com)

@holz-bau.bsky.social Do you know anything about the Japanese practice of single stair + fire escape?

We're in Tokyo now, and it seems that Japan is all single stair, but they all have balconies with linked fire escapes.

I'm sure this caper makes for a sweet story.

Honestly it would be best if the US adopted the concept of city-states like Germany for major metropolitan areas, but the US has no tradition of that, unlike Germany.

Within the United States, yes. Consolidated city-counties are relatively common, though: San Francisco, St Louis, and Baltimore function as both. Then there's the uniquely good case of Virginia which allows places to be an independent city OR a county. (There's no overlap.)

Imagine if our costs to deliver transit projects weren't 5X peer jurisdictions? If we could apply Calif excellence in highway building to rail? Let's make sure Calif builds real state capacity, esp at Caltrans, so we can build the infrastructure we need
3/3

If there's any place that explains why the State should strip local control over land use, it's SF.

You got lucky. I flew out of JFK yesterday for California, and the line was 2h 20m with pre-check. Normal security line was 4h long.

ICE was also there, loaded for bear. I have no idea why they need tactical gear to stand around an airport terminal.

SF tore down Candlestick Park in 2015 after the 49ers left, and the entire area has been a wasteland since.

(Granted, the 'Stick was kind of a wasteland even when the 49ers and Giants played there, but at least it was a fun, proletarian place to see a game.)

Same problem we have in the States with places like Candlestick Park, but it's worse in the US. An empty 12000-seat stadium is an eyesore; an empty 65,000-seat stadium is an open wound.

Can't we just be like the Japanese and call it a tie after 12 innings rather than all these gimmicks?

"Kabuki."

oh god who designed this

Only a week worth of data verified off of the MTA's in-station cameras but... the new fare gates look to have cut fare beating by a lot in the pilot stations where it was most rampant. www.youtube.com/watch?v=aVyW...

Does anyone know how the ultra-Orthodox Jewish villages in upstate New York build so much using relatively simple construction techniques?

New Square, Kiryas Joel, and Kaser all build tons and tons of copy-pasted wood apartment buildings.

oh you've got to be kidding me. of course eric adams legalized ADUs in the stupidest ways possible. instead of a simple blanket legalization, he excluded a big chunk of the SFR neighborhoods that weren't in the "transit zone."

I fully expect to see a lot of these things in eastern Queens, Staten Island, and outer Brooklyn, especially interwar single-family detached neighborhoods. Ozone Park, Whitestone and Little Neck in Queens all come to mind; same for Midwood and Mill Basin, Brooklyn.

Meanwhile, alcohol prohibition was a disaster, and the alcohol regulatory system basically works.

Gambling raises huge corruption concerns, especially the prediction market variant. Someone plugged in to the Administration got very rich wagering on the Maduro kidnap operation. Same for ballplayers throwing games.

An even better idea: install turnstiles on the LIRR, reduce your staffing, and run frequent trains all the time, not just rush hour and special events.

(Yes I know that the LIRR has bad staffing rules that currently preclude this)

My dude. You were a pro skateboarder. By definition you remain cool.

Co-sign. The actual work of politics is not glamorous. Writing comment letters to state senators isn't exactly "The West Wing."

Now, you have serious people like AOC and Mamdani leading the movement, not cranks like Peter Camejo, Jill Stein and Medea Benjamin, so we'll see if that changes.

But there's not a great track record of explicitly left-wing (as opposed to liberal) organizations gaining power and making it stick.