Things I Would and Wouldn’t Miss #17 (Would).

When I lived back in America, I had a car. Since my apartment was on the back side of a residential hill, I drove everywhere: work, the grocery store, the gas station. Then I moved to Tokyo, and I suddenly didn’t need a car any more.

I initially struggled with the train system in Tokyo due to the sheer number of train and subway lines. (Remember, I had only really used public transportation in cities like Osaka and Nagoya.) Once I got the hang of it, though, I found I really didn’t miss having a car — or more specifically, needing a car. Gone was the need to keep buying gas, to wait in traffic jams, to hunt for parking spaces, to deal with inspection, to worry about repairs. Instead, I had access to a surprisingly reliable system of transportation that would get me most places I wanted or needed to go, with buses filling in the gaps. Sure, they all stopped running by midnight, but most businesses had already closed well before that. While I did miss the ability to get in a car and just drive, the things I didn’t miss far outweighed it.

The biggest benefit I found was that being late because your train is delayed means no one blames you. If heavy traffic made me late for work or class back home, I was basically told I should have left sooner, but a late train is the perfect excuse here. Just present a small slip of paper to prove it and you’re off the hook. (I actually had to do exactly this today.)

Additionally, because Tokyo has so many trains and subways, you can also select alternate routes (e.g. fastest or cheapest). There were a couple of times where my main train home from work had a huge delay and I just took the subway until I could switch to a different train home. It’s nice to have options.

Finally, while public transportation can be crowded and you’re not guaranteed a seat, it’s nice to just board and be taken to your destination. My commute is a little long, but it gives me the opportunity to watch videos, read the news, work on this blog or my YouTube channel, text-chat with friends and my mom, or just close my eyes and doze off. I can be as productive or unproductive as I like, since I’m not the one operating the vehicle.

I would very much miss the access to widespread and (mostly) reliable public transportation, especially in major cities, if I ever moved back to America.