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.