Notices by Robert von Oliva (naruciakk@ak.kawen.space), page 2

The perfect system of financing roads doesn’t exis…

Parking rules are not, however, the limit of what keeps cars out of Tokyo. Arguably, an even bigger reason is how infrastructure has been funded in Japan. That is, by the market, rather than directly by taxes. In the 1950s and ’60s, much like Europe and the United States, Japan began building expressways. But unlike in Europe and America, it was starting from a considerably more difficult place. In 1957, Ralph J. Watkins, an American economist who had been invited to advise the Japanese government, reported that “the roads of Japan are incredibly bad. No other industrial nation has so completely neglected its highway system.” Just 23 percent of roads were paved, including just two-thirds of the only highway linking Osaka, Japan’s historical economic hub, to Tokyo.

But unlike America, the idea of making them free never seemed to cross politicians’ minds, probably because Japan in the postwar era was not the world’s richest country. Capital was not freely available. To build the roads, the national government formed corporations such as the Shuto Kōsoku-dōro Kabushiki-gaisha, or Metropolitan Expressway Company, which was formed in greater Tokyo in 1959. These corporations took out vast amounts of debt, which they had to repay, so that the Japanese taxpayer would not be burdened. That meant that tolls were imposed from the very beginning. The tolls had to cover not just the construction cost, but also maintenance and interest on the loans. Today, to drive on the Shuto Expressway costs from 300 to 1,320 yen, or $2.50 to $11 for a “standard-size” automobile. Overall, tolls in Japan are the most expensive in the world — around three times higher than the level charged on the private autoroutes in France, or on average, about 3,000 yen per 100 kilometers ($22 to drive 62 miles).

Source: https://heatmap.news/economy/tokyo-anti-car-pedestrian-paradise