Since moving to Sapporo I’ve lived in the North 24 area for all this time. People who haven’t been to Sapporo probably have no idea what this means. Basically the centre of the city is laid out in a grid-iron pattern so in the middle of the city there’s North 1. So, if I live close to North 24, my house is about 24 blocks north of the city center. On foot, it takes about 30 minutes to walk home which isn’t so bad. Of course, during the winter in Sapporo, the roads are slippery as hell so I try not to walk outside too much. I’ve experienced far too many tumbles in this city... luckily, no broken bones yet but some very colorful bruises.
I usually I rely on the Sapporo transportation system to get to work and to get around the city. I live about 5 minutes away from the North 24 subway station so I’m always using the subway.
The subway in Sapporo is good but a tad expensive. If you want to travel from one train station to the the next it costs about 200 yen (roughly $2.20). Umm... I think I’ll just walk ten minutes instead of losing a couple of coins. I heard one reason why the price is like this is because the subway cars use rubber tires -- the maintenance is supposedly pricier but quieter and smoother.
What can I say about the subway system? The ride is fairly smooth for the most part but there are some times when you might be flung aside by the sudden curbs that the subway line has. Make sure to hold on to those rails, or are you afraid of all the germs that are on them?
The seats on the subway are comfortable enough. I have no gripes about this.
There are three lines which’ll take you to the important places in town. The lines are called Tozai (East West), Nanboku (North South) and Toho (I have no idea what this is supposed to mean). Other parts of the city can be accessed by bus or train.
The subway is very prompt. The only inconveniences I’ve experienced were the “human accidents” (a direct translation in Japanese) -- literally meaning somebody decided to end their life by jumping on the tracks. If there’s a suicide usually the bereaved family members have to pay some exorbitant amount of the money to the city. Is it good to make these saddened people even sadder? I wonder how many people in this country have committed suicide because of the ridiculous amount of money that they have to pay because of their son or daughter.
In the world, some subway systems have glass barriers that go to the ceiling (I’ve seen them in Kyoto and Hong Kong) but not Sapporo. Actually, the Tozai line (and only the Tozai line) has a barrier but it’s about a meter and a half high. I was thinking a couple of days, while waiting for the subway, that anyone with a bit of athleticism could jump over this thing with a running start.
Well, I’m sure some day the Sapporo subway system will spend that extra bit of cash to make sure that no more morons commit suicide -- I say morons because whenever this happens, there a big delay and I have to pay extra money to ride a taxi. Maybe I’m being insensitive, what do you think?
I heard in Tokyo that sometimes blind people (is this word PC?) sometimes fall into the tracks and die. This is very unfortunate and that’s one more reason why the Sapporo subway system should install glass barriers.
Speaking of suicide, you can notice that there are giant mirrors next to the platforms (only certain parts). This is a way of making people who are suicidal look at themselves and realize that life is worth living. I wonder how many lives these mirrors have saved?
One more problem that I can think of is that Sapporo station and Odori station (both are in the center of the city) are getting too crowded during rush hour. Sometimes there are so many people waiting for the subway that people can’t walk by smoothly. The subways system’s construction was completed around the time of the Olympics in 1972 when the city’s population was about 1 million people. Many years later the population has blossomed to 1.9 million people. Maybe the guy who designed things didn’t expect the city to become this big. Speaking about blind people again, it’s probably not very fun for them to bump into every other person that’s waiting for the subway during rush hour.
Well, what else can I say? The best time to ride the subway is in December. December is the time when everyone has to go to year-end parties and it’s fun to see all the people with pink faces, trying to stay awake while grasping on their handrail or the drunk who’s leaning his/her head on the passenger next to him/her. Then there’s the smell of booze. These cars reek of booze! I can’t think of too many countries where you have that many people drunk on subway cars.
I’ve got a day off today and it looks like I’ll be using the ol’ Sapporo subway once again tomorrow. Hopefully, there won’t be any “human-accidents”.
札幌交通機関 地下 Sapporo Subway System
