[Nyororin]

Originally Posted by OHayou

In New York subway systems (I've only experienced New York but I'm assuming it might be the same in other big city subway systems) you will have musicians (as well as performers like break dance groups, etc) who play in the subway halls and main areas. I'm assuming they need a license or permit of some sort (perhaps not though) and typically they are pretty good at their craft. They have tip jars, pamphlets containing information about them, possibly CDs they are selling. Doesn't sound like that is the case in Japan though.

Actually, in the larger stations, you can see stuff like this... But it is usually done outside the station entrance or in a park by the stations. It's been a few years since I have needed to go through there on the train (we moved so hardly ever go that way by train), but there is a certain station that has a large wide hall inside where bands often played off to the side.

I was thinking that you were talking about inside the train, where that sort of thing is really unthinkable. Stations, though, sometimes do have bands and the like playing in them / in front of them.

The US heaviest population centers are heavily concentrated along the costal areas, East and West. So a decent mass transit sustem serving basically the same kind of land mass as Japan has that serviced mainly the costal areas would be little differnt in scale than what is happening in Japan. Then maybe a couple major high speed lines across the country's midsection for coast to coast transit. That would go a long way to cutting dependence on imported oil and toward cutting pollution.

While I agree that some of the heavier population centers are along the coast, having a system serving those areas would not, in my opinion, be nearly enough to convince someone to give up their car. While Japan may be in the same type of space area, the actual main population centers are very compact. There is a tight network of trains in the main city bits, with a lighter net over the other areas. In the US, however, population is spread out over a huge sprawling area. There isn't the same compact sort of city. Large suburbs spread over a very wide area. This is really what I meant by the difference in space. In Japan, you can have a train system that is relatively compact and be within reach of most of the population of an area. In order for there to be the same ease of access for the suburban population in the US, there would need to be a lot of ground covered... Which really isn't feasible. A tight inner net means very little when you have to go so far to get to it. A suburban resident who would need to drive to a station is not going to bother. They'll drive all the way - especially when their image of mass transit isn't all that great.