Woman, 74, killed after being pushed into BART train by homeless man, police say

Some parts of Tokyo yes, other parts no. You see it less once you venture out of the main stations like Shinjuku Shinagawa, Harajuku, etc. etc. It is not all stations by any means. Even the bullet train lines don’t have barriers on occasion.

It’s helpful infrastructure but it’s also insanely expensive to build and maintain. I imagine that the financial burden is lessened due to the sheer massive volume of daily train riders in the greater Tokyo area. It’s doubtful JR could shoulder the cost itself without the constant revenue stream from such a large metropolitan area literally dependent on train usage.

I don’t think it’s necessarily fair to attribute it to cheapness.