Tokyo Vice author Jake Adelstein is reporting on his blog that the Tokyo Metropolitan Government is seriously considering having the Toei subway lines — which it runs — expand to 24-hour service.
The change would coincide with the planned addition of more international flights at Tokyo’s domestic Haneda airport, set to happen later this year. Tokyo is notorious for having a public transit system that shuts down at around 1:00, making a night out either one that ends around midnight, or an all-night affair that lasts until service resumes in the early hours of the morning.
The Toei company runs the following lines: Akasuka, Mita, Shinjuku, and Oedo.
24-Hour Tokyo: Tokyo Government to Run Subway Line All Night?!! Scoop! [Japan Subculture Research Center, via Matt Alt]
Very interesting — seems like this could have significant cultural ramifications in Tokyo.
So much nightlife — from concert start times to meal schedules to general social interactions — is predicated on that “train home” cut-off time, which can have the feel of a mass curfew.
There is a strata of businesses that exist to support an individual who misses his or her last train. I also wonder how they would adjust to this development.
>There is a strata of businesses that exist to support an individual who misses his or her last train.
Well, it may help more businesses than it hurts. If the trains ran through the night, rather than rushing hope at midnight, people may spend more time out with friends, and spend more money in bars, restaurants, karaoke, donkihote, SM clubs, etc.
Jean, can’t you make it so we can EDIT our comment if we mis-post a typo? i.e. like Flickr does–and like Facebook doesn’t…
> it may help more businesses than it hurts.
Oh, definitely — economically, they may prosper. As the quasi-curfew subsides, the Tokyo night might become more like Manhattan’s, with a variety of more self-imposed cut-offs for varying subsets of society. I’m wondering what that change will be like culturally.
I also wonder if the all-night trains will mean people will feel pressure to work even later than they had in the past.
Working later, definitely, that’s something I could see Japanese company’s take advantage of… Poor salarymen…
Max, sorry, but that’s not something that Wordpress can let you do (only admins can edit comments).
Wordpress does allow you to edit you comments if the user is logged in and allowed to edit the comment. See:
http://codex.wordpress.org/Template_Tags/edit_comment_link
I forgot to add but then you would have to have subscribed users. Or you could use one of the plugins like comment-xt or the ajax comment plugins.
But back to topic at hand, this was talked about quite some time ago as well for opening up 24hours on certain lines.. I really can’t see this happening as the Taxi union is quite powerful. They blocked it last time as far as I remember being told.
True, I can’t imagine that taxi companies would be very happy with this situation. But then again, if this is only limited to those lines, then you figure that people will still need to use taxis (because the lines won’t be enough), and there will be more people during the middle of night in need of them (since they won’t be waiting until 5am to take a train home).
And thanks for the suggestions on editing comments. I definitely don’t want to take the round of having readers subscribe to the system.