Comment by CharlieDigital

Eh.

The station itself is a pretty active hub. We arrived there 9:30 AM to visit teamLabs Kyoto (which is just walking distance away from the station) and it was already pretty packed in the station.

But I think your observation/comment maybe misses the mark: the rail operators may still end up owning some of the commercial real estate nearby whether it's office buildings, hotels, etc. It doesn't all have to be shopping or dining, just that the rail operating owning the real estate near the transit hubs provides an incentive to provide service to that hub to create more value from those holdings.