Yakuin to Hakata takes seven minutes once you’re on

The doors opened at Yakuin and there was a little room in the car. Then the next group got on and the space was gone. That was one rider’s morning on the Nanakuma Line around 8:30 this summer. In Fukuoka’s Chuo Ward, that single stop from Yakuin to Watanabe-dori is the line’s busiest stretch. Starting November 24, there’ll be 20 Hakata-bound trains through Yakuin in the weekday 8 a.m. hour, up from 18. They’re still four cars long. One regular answering a question about the 8:15 commute in 2024 found the third car roomier than the first two and the last. The seven-minute ride puts you on Hakata’s underground platforms 3 and 4. The bus from Yakuin can drop you in Sumiyoshi before it reaches Hakata, though a local rider found buses could stack up at the stops. If you’re comparing the two, start the clock at the Nishitetsu gates and stop it at your building. A ride to the station and a ride to work can give you two different answers.