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[mightyace]

Japan government subsidizes tollroad travel as financial 'stimulus'

The "subsidy" now maxes tolls at 1,000 yen regardless of the distance traveled.

This other article is a summary of a Japanese blogger's experience of the gridlock produced by the lowered tolls.
Blogger Taro in Japan highlights downside of politicians' deep discount on toll rates

OK.  What does everyone here think?

[yanksfan6129]

Toll roads in Japan were known for being outrageously expensive, but I understand that. I don't think lowering tolls was a great idea, Japan is soooo densely populated traffic must be a nightmare, especially now that more people can jam the roads.

[Alps]

Toll roads need to at least make more money than they spend.  If not, you're tolling the wrong road or mismanaging the system.  If they can turn a profit with these lower tolls, I support it.  If not, pick one of the former two options.  But increased traffic means that part of the money they make needs to go into widening the road or other forms of congestion management.  So that eats into the profits and will likely turn them into deficits in the end.

[Chris]

Japanese tolls are quite high, but the infrastructure is impressive, the Shuto network is almost completely elevated, as are networks in Osaka/Kobe. Besides that, Japan has a very extensive public transportation network. But this all comes at a high price for the government, I read somewhere Japanese public works spends more than the Pentagon. Maybe that's also why Japan has the highest public deficit of the world (192% of GDP)

[Nexis4Jersey]

Thats ridiculously Expensive, that basically pushes 90 % of the population onto other roads and non tollways creating endless jams!

[austrini]

Comparatively few people in Japan drive or even own a car, the country is too densely populated to allow for expansive car ownership and so it is discouraged. The tolls are insane on structures and bridges, I took the Tokyo Aqua-Line and paid $30 for the privilege. However, it saved me two or three hours (depending on traffic) and it was worth the money.

The Akashi Kaikyo Bridge was $20 or something, I dont remember specifically, but it also saved me two or three hours on a ferry. I didnt think the regular toll plaza rates were all that expensive. Its also hard to determine what is expensive when everything costs in the many thousands of yen, though.

The Expressways in Tokyo are awesome, they wind through skyscrapers 7 stories off the ground and have awesome views. The traffic (on the B- , C2-, and C1- at least) was never that bad for it being the largest city on earth.

There are some Japan blog posts at blog.aaroads.com. Also, most of Tokyo and Osaka's Expressways are on Google Street View now.

[Chris]

Japan is awesome. Check these HD videos:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OBJNy7Zht2Y

[austrini]

Yeah I honestly think about going back there every day. There are civil engineering and roadways there that would absolutely blow your mind.

Also, driving on the left is far more fun than the right. Ha.

Tokyo is getting a beltway and when I was there two years ago it was about 70% done. They're building it around to the west side now. That was the only big freeway project in the country that I can think of at that time.

[Chris]

Look at this for instance. This is that beltway, and a new interchange is being build in the yellow zone. Such things would be unthinkable of in Europe.


Osaka; an expressway through a building!




Tokyo:


4 levels? No problem!

[WillWeaverRVA]

I've always been a huge fan of Japanese civil engineering. That interchange on the bottom there is really impressive.

[yanksfan6129]

 

If they want to build a road, they don't think about cost or difficulty, do they? It appears that they are masters, though, at building roads around buildings (and in at least one case, through them!)

[Revive 755]

Look at this for instance. This is that beltway, and a new interchange is being build in the yellow zone. Such things would be unthinkable of in Europe.

Unfortunately, the same can be said for most of the US now.

4 levels? No problem!

Boy I'd love to see that design used in a few spots of the US.

[njroadhorse]

I think we could definitely take lessons from the Japanese for our urban freeways, but add some cost efficiency to it, so we're not in even more massive crumbling debt.

[jakeroot]

MAXIMUM BUMP


Though I am not able to find any information on the project, I just discovered this road project in the Bunkyo Ward of Tokyo, which evidently took like twenty years to complete.

It's basically a 600-metre long four-lane street that connects two roads that previously turned at those intersections. Where the road currently runs, a ton of buildings used to stand. I made this GIF to illustrate the changes:



Google Maps Link: https://www.google.com/maps/@35.7050066,139.7451413,601m/data=!3m1!1e3

You're probably thinking, "what's the big deal?" Well, that's fair. What I find interesting is that, in 1997, you can already start to see the outline of the road on the right side of the image; that section of road wouldn't open until late 2008, so this was something they had been planning for a while. But I also find it remarkable how many buildings had to be removed to build the arterial. IIRC, the value of older Japanese homes is fairly low compared to newer homes, so in time, the buildings became sufficiently low in value as to be expropriated for purposes of road construction. Nevertheless, that's a lot of buildings in the way of a road that's only 600-metres long!

[Chris]

Mass expropriation for highway infrastructure is still pretty common in Asia.

A quarter of a million people had to be resettled for the construction of an expressway in Karachi: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lyari_Expressway_Resettlement_Project

[jakeroot]

Mass expropriation for highway infrastructure is still pretty common in Asia.

A quarter of a million people had to be resettled for the construction of an expressway in Karachi: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lyari_Expressway_Resettlement_Project

I wouldn't want to suggest that expropriation was in any way unusual in Asia, although I don't strongly associate the practice with Japan, especially in areas with such high density.

That said, I am aware that even Japan does continue to expand their expressway network (with the Gaikan Expressway being the latest example from what I can tell). Maybe, in my head, I was thinking that new arterial roads (non-expressways) were less common.

[Chris]

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Housing_in_Japan

Japan has an unusual system where houses (both wooden and concrete) have a fixed lifespan and are supposedly torn down after 20 or 30 years. If they don't renew plans, perhaps this means that acquiring a right of way might be easier than elsewhere, provided you wait long enough for those lifespans to expire.

[jakeroot]

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Housing_in_Japan

Japan has an unusual system where houses (both wooden and concrete) have a fixed lifespan and are supposedly torn down after 20 or 30 years. If they don't renew plans, perhaps this means that acquiring a right of way might be easier than elsewhere, provided you wait long enough for those lifespans to expire.

I was just reading about this the other day. Seems like an easy way to acquire housing!

Then again, I've heard that this practice is winding down a little. Consider me interested in how this changing practice might affect the Japanese Government's ability to acquire land for public use.

[compdude787]

I find it quite crazy that Japanese houses are meant to last only 20-30 years! Seems like a waste of resources to only build houses to last that long.

[jakeroot]

I find it quite crazy that Japanese houses are meant to last only 20-30 years! Seems like a waste of resources to only build houses to last that long.

I'm still confused with regards to durability. I don't know if Japanese homes, and other structures, are designed to only last 20 or 30 years. Or, if it's just that the nominal value of these structures after 20 or 30 years is so low, that even if they were designed to last longer, there's no point in keeping them as their value is virtually nought.

I do know that prefab homes are very popular in Japan. I would guess that these structures aren't designed to last as long as a regular home.

[Alps]

I find it quite crazy that Japanese houses are meant to last only 20-30 years! Seems like a waste of resources to only build houses to last that long.

I'm still confused with regards to durability. I don't know if Japanese homes, and other structures, are designed to only last 20 or 30 years. Or, if it's just that the nominal value of these structures after 20 or 30 years is so low, that even if they were designed to last longer, there's no point in keeping them as their value is virtually nought.

I do know that prefab homes are very popular in Japan. I would guess that these structures aren't designed to last as long as a regular home.

"Unlike in other countries, Japanese homes gradually depreciate over time, becoming completely valueless within 20 or 30 years. When someone moves out of a home or dies, the house, unlike the land it sits on, has no resale value and is typically demolished. This scrap-and-build approach is a quirk of the Japanese housing market that can be explained variously by low-quality construction to quickly meet demand after the second world war, repeated building code revisions to improve earthquake resilience and a cycle of poor maintenance due to the lack of any incentive to make homes marketable for resale."
https://www.theguardian.com/cities/2017/nov/16/japan-reusable-housing-revolution

[jakeroot]

I find it quite crazy that Japanese houses are meant to last only 20-30 years! Seems like a waste of resources to only build houses to last that long.

I'm still confused with regards to durability. I don't know if Japanese homes, and other structures, are designed to only last 20 or 30 years. Or, if it's just that the nominal value of these structures after 20 or 30 years is so low, that even if they were designed to last longer, there's no point in keeping them as their value is virtually nought.

I do know that prefab homes are very popular in Japan. I would guess that these structures aren't designed to last as long as a regular home.

"Unlike in other countries, Japanese homes gradually depreciate over time, becoming completely valueless within 20 or 30 years. When someone moves out of a home or dies, the house, unlike the land it sits on, has no resale value and is typically demolished. This scrap-and-build approach is a quirk of the Japanese housing market that can be explained variously by low-quality construction to quickly meet demand after the second world war, repeated building code revisions to improve earthquake resilience and a cycle of poor maintenance due to the lack of any incentive to make homes marketable for resale."
https://www.theguardian.com/cities/2017/nov/16/japan-reusable-housing-revolution

Thanks. I was driving earlier and didn't have time to actually Google it. Lots of homes that I see on Google and in videos seem decently well-built, but I'm sure IRL would tell a different story.

Seems to me that it might be a cycle that could eventually end, assuming earthquake standards eventually peak and/or earthquake standards become too expensive to remove only 20 years after their initial inclusion.

[Buffaboy]

It's interesting how freeways and extensive public transit are able to coexist peacefully in the metropolises across Japan, especially Tokyo which I visited in mid-January. I wonder why we can't do that here in the US.

[Chris]

Japan has an incredible public debt, at 223% of GDP, which is by far the highest in the world, there are very few countries that have even half that rate. It's almost three times the U.S. public debt (relative to economy).

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_public_debt

[jakeroot]

It's interesting how freeways and extensive public transit are able to coexist peacefully in the metropolises across Japan, especially Tokyo which I visited in mid-January. I wonder why we can't do that here in the US.

It's a very homogenous society; if something stands to benefit the majority, my understanding is that most Japanese people will support it.

As I've learned in my transport courses at university, society doesn't benefit from transport networks that don't have some degree of redundancy (to absorb "shock"). Japan's major cities have incredibly redundancy; as far as I know, Tokyo offers all forms of transportation. If one mode gets overloaded, there's capacity elsewhere to absorb it. This redundancy is beneficial to everyone, even if someone only uses bikes and subways to get to work.

This is all wonderful, although they are apparently suffering from incredible levels of debt (^^^^) building such infrastructure.