![](https://i.imgur.com/CLvY2jA.png")
03-06-2023, 08:04 PM
Today 06:22 am JST
By Casey Baseel, SoraNews24
TOKYO
Japan may be one of the world’s largest automobile producers, but that doesn’t mean it’s easy to get around the country by car. There’s a huge hurdle to hopping into your car and getting out on the highway for a weekend drive or family trip, which is that Japan’s expressways are extremely expensive. Want to take the expressway from Tokyo to Osaka? That’ll be about 12,000 yen in tolls, and, unless you’re planning on abandoning your car in Osaka, another 12,000 yen when you drive back to Tokyo.
......
In 2005, Japan’s expressways were quasi-privatized, becoming managed by stock companies with the Japanese government holding a controlling number of shares. As part of this restructuring, the government promised that, by the designated year, it would do away with expressway tolls, making them free to use.
Unfortunately, the government is now backtracking on that pledge. At a session of the House of Councilors on May 31, the attending members enacted the Revised Act on Special Measures for Road Development, which legally allows them to continue collecting tolls past when they’d said they’d be ended. The good news is that they’ve given the public plenty of advance warning about the extension. The bad news? The new deadline to end toll collection is the year 2115.
https://japantoday.com/category/national...ee-by-2115
By Casey Baseel, SoraNews24
TOKYO
Japan may be one of the world’s largest automobile producers, but that doesn’t mean it’s easy to get around the country by car. There’s a huge hurdle to hopping into your car and getting out on the highway for a weekend drive or family trip, which is that Japan’s expressways are extremely expensive. Want to take the expressway from Tokyo to Osaka? That’ll be about 12,000 yen in tolls, and, unless you’re planning on abandoning your car in Osaka, another 12,000 yen when you drive back to Tokyo.
......
In 2005, Japan’s expressways were quasi-privatized, becoming managed by stock companies with the Japanese government holding a controlling number of shares. As part of this restructuring, the government promised that, by the designated year, it would do away with expressway tolls, making them free to use.
Unfortunately, the government is now backtracking on that pledge. At a session of the House of Councilors on May 31, the attending members enacted the Revised Act on Special Measures for Road Development, which legally allows them to continue collecting tolls past when they’d said they’d be ended. The good news is that they’ve given the public plenty of advance warning about the extension. The bad news? The new deadline to end toll collection is the year 2115.
https://japantoday.com/category/national...ee-by-2115
