Straddling the Keiyo Expressway linking Tokyo and Chiba is the Funabashi tollgate. A long row of booths collects a 200 yen toll from most drivers. Perennial jams at the tollgate have long caused frustration to me and others heading toward Chiba. People late for planes at Narita suffer even more.
Yet the tollgate is quite unnecessary. If that paltry 200 yen yen has to be collected, it could be done so far more easily at exit booths farther down the highway. The hundreds of toll collectors employed 24 hours a day seven days a week to man the Funabashi booths could be reduced 90 percent.
I once tried to point all this out in a Japanese magazine. The only reaction I got was a delegation of five ex-Transport Ministry officials from the Japan Highways Public Corp. sent to tell me I was wrong. None of these gentlemen seemed to know much about actual conditions along the expressway. But they all insisted there was no alternative to the Funabashi operation. They then gave me a lot of free highway tickets, presumably to keep me happy and silent in the future.