Having decided to dismantle and privatize Japan Highway Public Corp., the Cabinet of Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi is now focusing on which road construction projects to cancel.

People living along the route planned for the No. 2 Tomei Expressway, one of the projects likely to be scrapped, are shocked, angry and deeply concerned.

"What the hell are they thinking?" Tadatsune Kajimoto, 75, asked. Kajimoto is the director of an industrial park cooperative association in the northeastern part of Shimizu, Shizuoka Prefecture. An artist's rendition of a completed Shimizu interchange hangs on the association's wall.

The interchange would be constructed right in front of the industrial park, substantially improving transportation efficiency for the companies operating there.

The chances of that happening, however, are getting slimmer as Koizumi presses on with his administrative reforms.

On Tuesday, the prime minister instructed his Cabinet ministers to cut 1 trillion yen in spending on government-backed corporations in fiscal 2002 and approve a plan to scrap and privatize seven major state-financed institutions, including Japan Highway Public Corp. and three other road-related entities.

The 16-hectare Shimizu industrial park is home to 17 local companies, including machinery manufacturers and warehouse operators. Five of the lots are vacant.

"Breaking promises would undermine people's confidence in politics," Kajimoto said. "Roads that are necessary must be constructed."

The impact of the decision is also being felt by those whose connection to the highway project is less obvious.

In the Isabu area, some 200 farmers are holding their breath, wondering about the fate of an ongoing project to reduce a steep slope supporting a 50-hectare farm into a gentler slope.

The project would substantially reduce the farmers' workload, but it is now at stake because it is linked to the construction of the No. 2 Tomei Expressway.

A road connecting the existing Tomei Expressway to the new one will run through the area and construction of an interchange for it is already under way. Meanwhile, earth and sand produced by digging a tunnel for the expressway will be used to fill the sunken ground to reduce the grade of the farm's slope.

"When the ongoing farmland construction is over, our workload will become one-third less heavier than today," said Ryotaro Nishigaya, a 53-year-old orange grower. "We're so anxious that we feel a single day is just as long as one season."

A similar project in the city is being financed by a 300 million yen loan and will get another loan worth 100 million yen.

"A delay in the project will increase the financial burden on farmers, including interest payments on bank loans," said an official involved in the project. "If it's frozen, we will sue the government."

The city of Shimizu has almost completed land purchases for its portion of the No. 2 Tomei and made roughly 90 percent of the planned construction orders.

"If we stop construction now, we would be left with piers halfway down standing like some kind of monument," a Shimizu official said. "We're also worried about possible landslides in parts of the mountains we have already excavated."

Some regular users of the existing Tomei Expressway, however, support Koizumi.

"I had another smooth day today. There's no need to construct another road," said Yoshitsugu Komuro, a 54-year-old truck driver from Ibaraki Prefecture.