> There are S-Bahn stations in Switzerland with 10 times the daily riders of BART that are nothing more than a signpost and a place to stand.

Do you mean a specific BART station? The average total BART daily ridership (400k weekday, 100k weekend) is roughly comparable to the total daily Zürich S-Bahn network ridership (400k-450k in one figure I found).

I'm not sure that Zürich has the most popular network in the country but I would assume it's up there. Bigger stations here are definitely smaller than that SJ monstrosity, and I really like how efficiently they're laid out, but which popular stations are you thinking of that are just a signpost and a place to stand? Even the most popular space-constrained ones in the city (Hardbrücke, Stadelhofen) are way more than that, and the only I can think of in the city that are basically just a signpost are those with relatively infrequent service (Seebach, Friesenberg, etc.).

In any case, I think Caltrain feels a lot more like the S-Bahn equivalent, and most of the stations aren't much bigger either. This seems to hold for several other commuter train services in the US, such as NJ Transit.

I was admittedly thinking of a place like Friesenberg, but also stations along the Sihltal like Manegg. There's literally nothing to Manegg beyond a sidewalk[1]. Compare and contrast the monstrosity of the Warm Springs BART[2], which is one of the least-used stations.

1: https://www.google.com/maps/@47.337124,8.5196172,3a,75y,4.85...

2: https://www.google.com/maps/@37.502989,-121.939301,3a,75y,19...

Switzerland benefits from having POP ticketing, whereas US planners insist on faregates. The only reason the US builds mezzanines is to manage the faregate queues.

Interestingly, Caltrain uses POP, and indeed it has some stations that amount to a sidewalk next to the train tracks. So this isn't quite a "US planners" issue; Caltrain and BART serve different halves of the Bay Area.

Caltrain manages to be much more dysfunctional than BART, sadly.

The obsession is not just with stations;everything is bigger over there. My first visit to the US, I was traveling from Japan. The difference in size of things in the two countries is uncanny. From people to cars to food;my impression was Americans like it bigger.

People living in Japan are used proper train boarding and exiting - they stand on the correct entry markers and the train doors will be on these markers once it stops. In the same manner no one blocks the exit markers and people stand in the queue behind the train door ready to disembark quickly.

Only this makes the 90 second Shinkansen stops possible as well as the 3 minute cadence between trains we saw in Hiroshima station possible. Not only is the platform used very efficiently, there is even a small Soba restaurant in the middle of the platform! :)

In comparison here in Europe (CZ) the trains are usually late and you migh only lern the platform couple minutes before the train arrives - and it might even change at the last minute! There are no door markers and trains stop preatty much at random somewhere at the platform. Most traincars still have stairs and people are not used to proper queueing, so they form a fan around every door that blocks people from quickly getting eiter in or out.

The trains are also slow (160 km/h max on parts of track and on a good day) and mostly not EMUs, so you have platform space used up by the locomotive. Oh well.

Please don't generalise all of Europe based on circumstances in a single country.

In the three European countries I'm most familiar with, at least some types of train stop in a consistent position, with platform markings and queuing.

I really hope so - one gets very used to it while traveling in Japan becase it's so convenient! And then one misses it a lot when getting back.

Isn't that because of the obvious - Americans generally are bigger than Japanese people and America is bigger than Japan? I'm not sure it's a preference as much as an adjustment.

I suppose I'm destined to wander around my small(er than most other places in the world) Japanese flat, with fittings made for someone much shorter than I am even though I'm average height in my own country, and ponder on the existence of downvotes for a fairly innocuous musing.

Perhaps I should leave comments like "Japanese people just like things smaller because when I was there everything was so small" and not notice that they have a lack of space and are on average, smaller, hence the need for space saving measures and smaller fittings, or is that just one more, in my opinion, fairly innocuous musing that must not be stated… maybe it's just me? Maybe.[1][2]

しょうがない

[1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ezwox3YfyoU

[2] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5glLhvj4yd4