Nicholas’ Travel Abroad

            The thing I took away from our travels the most was the ease of transportation in Japan.  With the current gas crisis in America it makes sense to me that we should begin to look into deploying a mass transit system.  During the Japan Rail presentation they said that 16 million people use their trains daily, this does not include the other Japan Rail companies or the subway systems.  The ability to travel so freely in Japan not only made our trip easy but also allowed us to visit many cities in two weeks.  The Shinkansen allowed us to travel from Osaka to Tokyo in 2 and half hours; this trip is around the distance from the base of Michigan to the bridge, a trip that takes 5 to 7 hours depending on traffic.  If the train system had not been in place and we had to rely on a bus system to travel to our destinations, we would not have been able to fit so many visits in our two-week trip.  After using this system for a week it became perfectly clear that we need this system in America, with the price of oil rising and the possibility that we may run out of oil; it makes sense that a statewide transportation network could solve these problems.  After seeing how perfect the Japanese system worked, I feel that it could be the solution to our aging system of highways and personal vehicles.