Tokyo Tidbits

You have never been in The Tube -- the London underground, have you? I can't think of something worse!

Enjoy! I envy you being in San Francisco. I really understand how nice it is to get back together with your boyfriend/girlfriend after an extended seperation. When you get back lets figure out the creative blogging project, and get me your neighborhood project photos ok?

UltraBob

The funny thing with North America, it has at the same time part of its world which is working with high tech and parts which seems to come from a third world countries.

My take on that is that it's maybe one of the reason the US have still a part of powerful economy, because they cut on the quality of many things, like a rough or raw aspect of things. It has its own charm (authentic feeling) and its own damage (social laws).

US is the richest country with the biggest debt in the world. Not so rich in fact ;)

Yeah, outside of Japan (at least the metro parts), you're not going to find a better, more on-time train system (and I've been around the globe). I honestly can't envision living anywhere in the good ol' USA w/o my wheels. I've had to rely on pub.transportation and it seriously takes up too much of your time waiting and being very early for the scheduled times. Tokyo however, when I lived there, it was soo nice not having that damn keyless entry remote, plus car key, plus house keys, plus etc keys... Just one house key in the wallet and less bulk in the pocket so when you're speed-walking-- err Tokyo-walking, your pants don't flail back'n'forth from the keys. :D

As much as I love pub.t, let's face it: Japan has such a wonderful train system because the volume of people living in the country demand it, and owning a car (incl. license and fees) is cost-prohibitive.

After talking with my students, it's become fairly obvious that if people could drive around giant fucking SUVs, they would. (If only because Americans are doing it...)

SUVs... In every aspect of them, they are an atrocity to the planet for all the resources they waste in building them, the pollution they create, the fact you can't see around them, and the traffic they create by being usually 1.8x larger than your classic coupe or sports car. Only once a day if that, do I ever see 2 people in an SUV together... Pathetic.

BART cannot compare to the metros in Tokyo or Paris. It's a train for suburban commuters, not a real metro.

It's slow, expensive, and has less capacity than the old key system that it was supposed to replace (after General Motors destroyed public transit in the Bay Area).

What's the alternative? Waking up at 6am to avoid gridlock in your SUV just trying to get across the bridge?

Unfortunately, most Americans don't travel to other countries and so they haven't experienced a real public transportation system (BART is not) and won't demand better.

For these reasons it is -- sadly -- safe to expect that the quality of life in N. California is only going to get worse.