California can learn from Japan's Shinkansen
Michael Cabanatuan
Sunday, May 9, 2010
San Francisco Chronicle
A Shinkansen high-speed train approaches a station in Tokyo. They arrive and depart every three to four minutes.
In a conference room in the Central Japan Railway Co.'s high-rise headquarters, Kenji Hagihara, a public relations manager, pauses in his telling of the story of Japan's high-speed rail system and glances at a calendar on the wall.
"By the way," he says, nonchalantly, "yesterday was the 45th anniversary of the Shinkansen."
A Shinkansen high-speed train awaits maintenance in the East Japan Railway Rolling Stock Center.
While California's plans to build high-speed rail agonizingly inch forward, attracting federal funding and support as well as increasing opposition from communities concerned about noise and critics who question its financing, in Japan, the world's premier high-speed rail system offers a glimpse at how high-speed rail could change communities, cope with the challenges of noise and earthquakes, and become a part of everyday culture.
The Shinkansen, as the speedy train network is known in Japan, is not considered futuristic, fancy or for the elite, as some critics of California's high-speed rail plans have scoffed. Rather, it's part of the fabric of daily life, something not so much taken for granted as relied upon. The sleek trains - better known outside Japan as bullet trains - shoot through much of the nation almost unnoticed every few minutes, efficiently hauling more than 300 million riders per year.
The world's first high-speed rail line, the Shinkansen opened in 1964, just in time for the Tokyo Olympics, with a single line between Tokyo and Osaka. It was like nothing the world had seen, with dedicated tracks and a train that ran at speeds of 130 mph.
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The bullet train's cars feature comfortable seats, plenty of legroom and windows to watch the scenery speeding by.
Japan's rail culture
Today, the Shinkansen, which means "new trunk line" in Japanese, covers about 1,400 miles on five lines. Another 400 miles of extensions are under construction and 300 miles are planned. Three private rail companies run the trains at speeds up to 186 mph on tracks built and maintained by the national government.
Japan's high-speed trains run with an efficiency, frequency and reliability unimaginable to those familiar with Amtrak or U.S. commuter railroads. The sleek trains with the distinctive long noses depart as often as 14 times an hour - and they're almost always on time. Over the past 45 years, the average delay is less than one minute - and that includes stoppages because of floods, earthquakes, accidents and natural disasters. Rail officials also note their safety record: There's never been a passenger fatality on the Shinkansen.
"The Shinkansen is very fast, very comfortable - you can relax," said Soichiro Takeda, a marketing manager for a construction corporation, who rides it at least once a month. "And it's never late. Time is very sacred here."
Commuters account for about 5 percent of riders, railway officials say, but the reclining airline-style seats (but with more legroom) are also filled with business travelers, families, students, shoppers, weekend adventurers and a few wide-eyed foreign tourists.
But while Japan and the Shinkansen show the promise of high-speed rail to California, they also reveal the challenges.
"Japan, especially Tokyo, is the epitome of rail culture," said Tomohiko Tanaguchi, a senior adviser for the Central Japan Railway, "and California, especially Los Angeles, is the epitome of car culture."
Even before the Shinkansen's debut, Japan was a rail-oriented society. And the Shinkansen, now with five lines operating, remains just a small part of the nation's extensive rail infrastructure, which includes a subway system with 19 lines run by public and private operators. Other large cities have subway networks as well, and even smaller towns have rail lines that loop through the city.
"You can get anywhere in (Tokyo) without a car, and around the country as well," said Jared Braiterman, a former San Franciscan studying sustainability in Japan as a research fellow. "Trains are coming every three to four minutes. The coverage is phenomenal; the efficiency is amazing."
Challenge of urban planning
California lacks such an extensive transit network, even in the Bay Area, and the tradition of traveling by train disappeared more than half a century ago, replaced by a culture of driving and flying. California doesn't have the same population density as Japan either, and it's only been a recent convert to building around transit stations. But that will probably change with high-speed rail, as it has in Japan.
"Whether it can succeed (in California) totally depends on the development of the area around the stations," said Teruo Morita, general manager of East Japan Railway Co.'s international railway business division.
The advent of the Shinkansen brought a population and business boom in many cities, and spurred others, like Kakegawa City, in the green tea-growing Shizuoka Prefecture, about 120 miles southwest of Tokyo, to lobby for stations of their own. Kakegawa, a city of 63,000, was dying like many American farm towns, with children heading off to college in Tokyo and never returning.
A Shinkansen station, residents figured, would lure new businesses and would also allow people to commute to work in Tokyo. They reached a deal with the railway, raised $120 million for construction, including $30 million in donations from residents, and built a large town square in front of the station site. The station opened in 1988, and businesses and residents began moving to town. Multistory buildings rose around the station, rents increased and the city developed an industrial park filled mainly with tech businesses, and new residential areas. The population nearly doubled, along with tax revenues.
Success at curbing noise
Deputy Mayor Kimiharu Yamamoto believes the station saved Kakegawa City, and advises smaller cities to embrace high-speed rail.
"If we didn't have any station, there would be no industrial park, no businesses," he said. "We would just be left alone as a farming town."
High-speed trains don't just deliver prosperity, though. They also come with problems, and noise has been a primary concern, much as it is on the Peninsula where some residents and cities are fighting with the High-Speed Rail Authority.
Japan has a national noise standard for the Shinkansen, limiting the noise it generates to 70 decibels in residential areas and 75 decibels in commercial districts. For comparison, a vacuum cleaner at 10 feet produces 70 dB, and a car passing 10 feet away measures 80 dB.
To meet Japan's stringent standards, rail officials say, they use lightweight trains with sleek and sometimes odd-looking noses, design windows, doors and the spaces where cars connect to be as smooth and aerodynamic as possible, cover the wheels, and work to quiet the overhead electrical supply system, a major noise source. The railways also install sound-walls in some locations along the tracks, ranging from roughly 2 to 12 feet high, and they travel at reduced speeds in the densest areas.
From beside the elevated tracks in the countryside, the Shinkansen is definitely noticeable as it whips past at top speed. But the low rumble and swishing sound it produces seems quieter than a passing BART train or Caltrain. There's no high-pitched screech or metallic roar, and no blaring horns. In urban areas, where the trains travel at lower speeds, the sound is mostly a muffled rumble.
Built to survive quakes
Japan also has experience in dealing with another California problem - earthquakes. The nation is as seismically unstable as California, and the Shinkansen is built to survive major temblors. While the system has been damaged in earthquakes, there has never been a death or injury on the Shinkansen caused by a quake.
The Shinkansen employs an early warning system that officials at the Japan Railway Construction, Transport and Technology Agency say is unique. It detects the primary waves of an earthquake, which travel faster than the main shock waves, instantly calculates the intensity and location and potential damage, then, if the temblor seems serious, cuts off the electrical supply to trains in the region and automatically applies emergency brakes.
"You need a mile, a couple of miles to stop," said Kazunari Kikuchi, special projects director for the agency. "Every second counts."
Ready to build in California
With its seismic sensibilities, its longevity and its reputation for punctuality and safety, Japan considers itself a good candidate to build California's high-speed train system.
California's system is still deep in the planning stages with engineers and planners mapping out specific alignments and station sites and completing environmental studies. The High Speed Rail Authority has $9.95 billion in state bond funds and another $2.25 billion in federal high-speed rail money but needs to line up more private and public investment to pay for the $43 billion cost of the first phase between San Francisco and Southern California. Construction is expected to begin by 2012 with the first trains running in 2019.
Japan, along with a number of other nations, has served as an adviser to the High-Speed Rail Authority and would like to bring the Shinkansen to America.
"I have a strong dream that the Shinkansen bullet train will be running on the land of California some day," said Seiji Maehara, the minister of Land Infrastructure, Transport and Tourism. While the Japanese have plenty of advice for California about the system's design and operation, their overall message is simple: Build it.
"California doesn't have any image of the benefits they will get," Kikuchi said.
Chronicle staff writer Michael Cabanatuan visited Japan in the fall of 2009 on a fellowship provided by the Foreign Press Center, Japan.
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