2010/02/08
Glimpses of Japan（外国人から見た日本）
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Glimpses of Japan (外国人から見た日本)
vol.276 Road Test
2010.02.08
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Minister of Transport Seiji Maehara announced last Tuesday that tolls on 50
sections of 37 rural expressways will be eliminated from June 2010 to March
2011 to test the impact of scrapping tolls. The Democratic Party of Japan
(DPJ) pledged in last year’s election campaign to do away with expressway
tolls, saying that it would benefit consumers by reducing transportation
costs and revitalize regional economies by encouraging more people to visit
them, and presumably spend money there.
Not everybody likes the idea, of course. Japan Railways isn't pleased at the
prospect of having fewer passengers if more people decide that traveling by
car is cheaper than by train. Commercial drivers such as truckers and bus
drivers aren't thrilled at the likelihood that the traffic congestion will
become even worse than it is now. People who live near expressways aren't
exactly looking forward to increased air pollution from car exhausts, either.
The 50 sections in the experiment cover a total of 1,626 kilometers,
accounting for around 18% of Japan’s expressways. They don't include the
Tokyo Metropolitan and Hanshin areas, which have already been excluded from
the proposed final elimination of tolls planned to start in fiscal year 2012.
During the test period, the government plans to check for negative effects
on traffic and on the railways. Once the experiment begins, the government
will end the weekend and holiday expressway toll discounts introduced last
year for ETC(electronic toll collection)-equipped vehicles, too. I wonder
what the reaction to that will be from the many people who bought the systems
specifically to take advantage of the discounts. I suspect that there will
be a lot of unhappy drivers next summer.
Actually, it appears that the test is going to be almost entirely on quite
rural sections of the expressways, some of them "spur" or "feeder" lines
for more major sections which are *not* going to have their tolls scrapped
during the test, and which people are going to have to use to access many
of the sections being tested. I don't see how the test can be a valid one
with those conditions.
I'll be very interested in seeing how well or badly this experiment turns
out. Meanwhile, I'm very happy about not having bought an ETC device for
my car or bike.
Glimpses of Japan vol.276
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