[bobthepanda]

I think that you and the OP have different notions of spotless.

In Japan, at major train stations I find the bathrooms reasonably clean and good to use. In New York, it smells of poop and pee because the odds are that someone probably publicly urinated, or some pipe somewhere in the subway tunnel is leaking sewage.

[nox101]

That's generally true of all bathrooms in the USA vs Japan. I think I've seen 1 disgusting bathroom in Japan a restaurant/mall/store in the more 15+ years I've spent there where as in the USA it's like 1 of 5 that's disgusting. In other words, it's not unique to train stations.

That said, the bathrooms between JR Shinjuku and Marunouchi-line used to smell pretty rancid. I haven't used them recently though.

[toyg]

Oh, I agree it's not unique of train stations. The Japanese overstaff pretty much anything - it's likely part of the reason for their massive public debt, but it helps maintaining infrastructure to good standards. It's the opposite attitude we see in most of the Western world, where public resources are cut to the bone until (and often even after) things rot and fall apart.

[bobthepanda]

JR East covers not only metropolitan train services in Tokyo but also a wider real estate/retail portfolio and all of eastern Honshu, with about 46k total employees.

MTA in New York City has about 70k employees.

[pezezin]

Maybe in Tokyo, but here in Tōhoku it looks like half the cities and roads were never very good to begin with, and now are falling apart.