sako toshiaki works as a department manager in a major cosmetics firm. he moved to his house in saitama prefecture back in the 1970s when his children were young. ( speaking japanese ) translator: the air here is really clean. i remember when we first moved here how pretty the stars were. before that, we had lived in an apartment near the company. maybe it was the neon signs, but you could hardly see any stars. i was really happy to move to such a nice place. narrator: sako leaves every morning at 7:00 a.m. and will commute about 20 miles to central tokyo. but as more people have moved to the suburbs, they've burdened the train system. sako has two options: the first will take 90 minutes door to door. after boarding a fast train, he transfers to a subway train. however, because this is the quickest route, he will not be able to sit down and will have to battle crowds at the transfer station. the second option is to take one train all the way to ginza so he can get a seat. the drawback is that he has to wait for that train and it makes more stops. in addi