Because of this, any kind of commercial activity using a motorized vehicle is highly regulated - services like UberX are impossible to launch in Japan. Even for food delivery, delivery drivers all ride bicycles.
No need to do that, most people don't use cars to commute already - It's probably fair to say that car usage is only for the weekend shopping or driving out of the city - that's why car rental is a thing in Japan for a few years now, you don't need a car every single day of the week.
Distances you often don't realise how large they are when using the awesome public transportation offerings.
Price per kilometer & wait time seems higher in Zurich, for example.
I think Zurich is just a particularly expensive example. At least in the US, most places seem a lot cheaper (I checked New York, Chicago, and San Francisco). Of the few cities I checked in Europe, London is comparable but Paris, Berlin, and Rome are closer to the US examples.
Numbers come from numbeo such as https://www.numbeo.com/taxi-fare/in/Tokyo?displayCurrency=US... and https://www.numbeo.com/taxi-fare/in/New-York, just swap the city name for the other cities I mentioned.
e.g. on my last trip home from SF, my ride to SFO cost about a third of my ride home from Haneda – both being roughly the same time and distance. if you arrive in Narita after the last train has left, have fun paying $250 to get into the city.
on the other hand, it's nice that I never feel the need to take a taxi given the great transit system, but it does rule out things like buying bulky items in person and night-time flights.
Back in 2011, it was 710 JPY base fare (but I think for two kilometres?) and exchange rates were also tremendously disadvantageous for anyone USD-denominated.
It was basically 9 USD to sit down in a cab.