A decision made earlier this month with regard to expressway construction underscores the concerns over expressway reform legislation that existed when Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi pushed it in 2004. He used to say that the reorganization of Japan Highway Public Corp. and three other expressway corporations into six private firms was aimed at ending the construction of superfluous roads.
But just as experts had predicted, the legislation does not look set to curb such construction. On the contrary, under a Feb. 7 decision by the National Land Development and Trunk Expressway Construction Council, the construction apparently will continue as it did in the days when pork-barrel politicians used the public expressway entities to push it.
This 20-member council consists of 10 business leaders and experts from the private sector, and 10 Diet members from both the ruling and opposition blocs, including Liberal Democratic Party secretary general Tsutomu Takebe and LDP Policy Research Council chairman Hidenao Nakagawa. Its decision means that most of the 9,342-km expressway network in a 1999 government plan will be constructed as originally envisaged.