How to Get to Okuibuki Motor Park (Shiga) Without a Car (2026)

Okuibuki Motor Park in Maibara, Shiga has no train station and no bus that stops at its car parks. The nearest station is JR Ōmi-Nagaoka, 24 km away by road; from there Maibara City’s ¥800 Maichan Bus (weekdays) and Maichan-go shared taxi (daily, booking compulsory) reach Kōzuhara, about 3 km short, so a door-to-door trip means a taxi of roughly ¥10,000 each way by our estimate. Everything here was checked on the official pages on 29 October 2026.

This is the eighth in our car-free access series. If you want to know what you can actually do once you arrive (the ¥15,000 weekday individual run, the car park hire rates, the 1 March booking night), that lives in our Okuibuki Motor Park guide. This page is only about getting up the mountain.

Which station is closest to Okuibuki Motor Park?

The resort names two stations, JR Maibara and JR Ōmi-Nagaoka. Maibara is the one you will arrive at, because it is the shinkansen stop: the resort quotes 20 minutes from Kyoto, 30 from Nagoya and 35 from Osaka. But Maibara is not the closest. We measured the road distance from each station to the resort on OpenStreetMap data:

Ōmi-Nagaoka is a small station on the JR Tokaido Line east of Maibara. Change at Maibara for it.

What public transport runs up the valley?

The bus that used to do this job is gone. Maibara City records that the Magatani Line, Ōmi-Nagaoka Station to Kōzuhara, was abolished on 1 October 2020. Two city services replaced it, and both end at Kōzuhara Kōryū Center, the community centre in Kōzuhara, the village below the resort.

Non-residents can ride both; the city says so in its own Q&A. Whether any Maichan-go stop sits at the resort itself is not stated in the city’s text pages, so treat it as TBC. Snow can also reroute the Maichan Bus, which matters from late November.

Can you make an 08:00 start without a car?

The Motor Park opens at 08:00 and closes at 17:00. Here is how each option lines up with that, as of 29 October 2026.

Going home is easier: running ends at 17:00, and Maichan-go leaves Kōzuhara at 17:30 every day, if you have booked it and can get down to the stop. The last Maichan Bus, at 13:55, is no use to anyone driving.

Two days show why the weekday or weekend question matters. The ¥15,000 individual run is weekdays only. Organiser days are often Sundays. The next one we have in the Drift Japan Event & Track Calendar is Babe run #11 on 1 November 2026, where past editions had drivers in at 08:00. On a Sunday, the weekday bus does not run at all.

The other problem is the 06:00 start itself. To catch a 06:00 car at Ōmi-Nagaoka you will almost certainly be sleeping near Maibara or Nagahama the night before. Check the first JR train to Ōmi-Nagaoka before you book a room.

How much is a taxi, and why is it the hard part?

No taxi fare to the resort is published. The best official yardstick comes from Maibara City itself: on its Maichan-go page it says a regular taxi costs about ¥2,400 for about 6 km. Scale that to the 24.3 km from Ōmi-Nagaoka and you get roughly ¥10,000 each way. That is our estimate, not a quote; a mountain road and waiting time can move it.

The money is not what stops people. The steps are:

• Ordering the car. Ohmi Taxi dispatches for Nagahama and Maibara on 0749-62-0106, 06:00 to 23:00. For an 08:00 arrival you are calling the day before, in Japanese, to send a car to a ski resort in the green season.
• Booking the shared taxi. Maichan-go is booked by phone on 0749-52-8200, by fax, or through a booking site that needs a user registration. The city documents all three only in Japanese.
• The last 3 km. Kōzuhara to the car parks is about 3 km of mountain road by our measurement, with no service on it, and you will be carrying a helmet at the very least.
• The resort. Its English site sends the Motor Park link straight back to the Japanese page, and the green-season access page gives only sat-nav directions.

Is there a shuttle, and is the season nearly over?

The resort advertises a ¥1,500 one-way shuttle from JR Maibara and JR Ōmi-Nagaoka, booked through a travel agency. Read the page and it is a ski product: snow-tyre and heavy-snow warnings, ski bags in the hold. No green-season shuttle is published anywhere on the Okuibuki site, as of 29 October 2026.

The Motor Park season itself runs from early April to late November, 08:00 to 17:00. The exact last day for 2026 is not officially stated, so treat any date after mid-November as TBC until you have confirmation.

If you are still choosing a venue, our Okuibuki entry in the track directory has the short version, and our operator’s 180SX weekday run report shows what the day looks like once you are there. For the same problem at the next Kansai venue, see how to get to Meihan Sportsland without a car.