As a New Yorker, I had really high expectations for the Tokyo subway system when I was there for three weeks but I was entirely underwhelmed.

Japanese public transit is actually completely broken in ways that are appalling:

1. Line transfers are user hostile within network

Even if you stay inside the same operator, like Tokyo Metro, making like transfers is an ordeal in distance, steps and most importantly cost. It costs 1.5x as much to go 2+3 stops than to go 5 stops on the same line.

2. Line transfers across networks are actively discouraged.

Even if the most convenient mode is for you to take two trains from two different companies (say Keihan and JR) they’ll charge full price rides for each.

To make it worse every company intentionally makes way finding to a competitor line hard. Get off the JR line in Osaka station and try to transfer to the Keihan line. It’s impossible.

3. Peak hour service is the single worst public transit experience in the world with the possible exception of the BRT in Colombia.

This was the real test of the system for me. I used to live along the L, which post CBTC has become one of the best performing subway lines in the system. It’s really bad at rush hour. People are jammed in.

It absolutely pales in comparison to a Japanese rush hour train which in my opinion is actively dangerous.

All of the “Japanese discipline and order” doesn’t buy them better headway either. It really does feel like 2 min headway on rush hour heavy rail is the max and neither Tokyo nor New York can do anything about it.

4. Station distances are far apart and last mile is terrible

Unless you’re really lucky and happen to do things right by a metro station, everything will be a 10-15 walk even within the core areas. Compare this to NY where we average a stop every 10 blocks even in the outer boroughs and can go as low as every 4 in midtown and downtown.

5. Entering and exiting the subway is a chore.

Either you have to deal with the terrible compromise that Japan made in privatizing its rail - giant maze like shopping malls that you have to walk through to get to the subways, or if you’re lucky a long underground passageway from a side street. There’s no cardinality, no orientation after you exit, the city is just a blob with buildings splattered across it.

I used to think Tokyo was the pinnacle of urban design - high functioning rail, zoning that allows for affordability - I am sad to say it fails on a number of key dimensions.

It is the most energetically “dead” big city I have spent time in and without a radical change in the norms of Japanese society it will remain that way.

For $2.75 I can ride all the way from Van Cortlandt park to the Far Rockaways, I can take as many trains as I want. I can connect with the vibrancy of the culture of our city. Will the train break down? Maybe. Will rats scurry across the tracks? Without doubt. Does the system smell like pee? Most of the time. But it is alive and thrumming. I will take that every day.

And if our dear leader Byford can get his way, it’ll run really well too.

An aside: the system that I think New York should actually be envious off are Hong Kong and Taipei who have both built excellent, reliable systems in cities that are vibrant and welcoming.

HN needs to tone down its Japan weeb levels.