JAPAN:Tokyo Building Way Out of Congestion

Japanese transport officials are not afflicted by the American environmentalist mantra that “We cannot build our way out of congestion.” The publication “Tokyo Metropolitan Expressway” contains these maps showing how completion of the Central Circular Expressway (7 to 10km radius) and the Tokyo Gaikan Expressway (third) circular route (15km radius) will relieve congestion on the present Tokyo urban motorway system that consists of a small inner circle (3km to 4km radius) plus nine radials and a bayshore route. A fourth circular route (not shown) the Metropolitan Inter-City Expressway at 40km to 60km radius is also under way, together with a new bayshore route.

Japanese construction is extremely high-cost, because of dense existing development, lousy landfill soils, high seismic risk, a medieval land ownership system and limits on open competitive bidding for construction – but the anti-construction ideologies of ‘induced traffic’ have not hamstrung highway planning there, yet. Tokyo has a highly developed and heavily used subway/rail system, the limits of which are understood. Rail carries 93% of trips to the center but metro area-wide only 45% of personal trips, bus 5% and private auto 50%. Road accounts for over 90% of freight.

Average speeds on surface roads in Tokyo are only 21km/hr (13mph), far worse than any US city but better than Bangkok and similar to Sydney, and probably a reason high tolls can be obtained.

Greater Tokyo has 25m pop and the metropolitan expressway system – entirely tolled – is only 264km (165mi) and carries 1.16m vehicle trips/day, a bit less than the Illinois Tollway in Chicago (pop 9m). Tolls collected in FY99 by MEPC were $2.7b or an average toll of $6.50/trip (vs $340m tolls and 73c/trip in Chicago). The Tokyo MEPC tolls are flat-rate per-trip tolls ($7 in Tokyo proper, $5 and $4 for outer jurisdictions) so short trips are heavily discouraged and very long trips favored! Vehicle classification is two classes, passenger vehicles, and large vehicles for which the toll rate is doubled.

Most of the existing and planned Tokyo tollways are 2x2 or 2x3 lanes. The 85km (53mi) Tokyo Gaikan Expressway (TGE), or third ring road, is planned as between 4 and 6-lanes for through traffic. In some sections it will be developed to 10-lanes in a generous 62m (203') right of way and will include 6-travel lanes (2x10m) on T-structures atop 4-travel lanes (2x7m) with additional Texan style frontage roads and 28m (92') of buffer tree planting, bicycle-ways and pedestrian walks. It is a similar distance from the Imperial Palace as the Washington beltway is from the White House. The first section of the TGE opened in Nov 92 and 29km are now open, with 14km more under construction.

The fourth ring Metropolitan Inter-City Exwy (Ken-O-Do) an average of 50km out from the center, 4 or 6-lanes has an alignment 280km (175mi) in length. Only one short section is open, but work is under way along more than half the route, and alignments are being pursued for the final quarter. This is a project of Nihon Doro Kodan, the national toll authority – Japan Highway Public Corp.

A fifth ring at about the 25km to 30km radius – between the TGE and the Ken-O-Do – is shown in some concept maps together with four new radial motorways – one of them a new mwy from Narita airport to downtown. In this plan there is a Tokyo Bay Mouth crossing involving a 12km bridge, and a huge center suspension span, possibly a world record.

That will have to wait on big traffic and revenue turnaround for the recently opened Bay bridge-tunnel or Aqua-line crossing, a $14b project that built 10km of under-bay tunnel, a mid-Bay artificial island and 5km of bridge. It is a considerable financial disappointment with tolls of $40/trip! Its connections either side are poor.

Congestion on the tolled urban motorway system (mostly 4 and 6 lanes) is combated with high toll rates, moderate posted speed limits (60km/hr and 80km/hr), and excellent surveillance, signing and motorist information services. Not yet with variable pricing, though this could come with the belated appearance of electronic tolling in the next few years.

The Ishihara Factor

An interesting new figure on the scene is the governor of Tokyo, Shintaro Ishihara, a former national parliamentarian and minister for the environment and transport. Famed for taking strong, unambiguous public stances on issues in a country where politicians traditionally blur their positions to allow for backroom negotiated arrangements, Ishihara has taken unprecedented initiatives for a local government leader – especially in insisting that diesel vehicle emissions in Tokyo be cleaned up, and in proposing a detailed zonal system of road pricing. All this independently of the national government and its agencies.

The toll system on the Tokyo expressways may have to be completely changed to fit with Ishihara’s pricing of local streets, if that scheme moves towards implementation. Ishihara is not anti-construction, but appreciates that construction without proper pricing won’t fix congestion. But proper pricing on the expressways will require an improvement on the crude flat rate tolls, and an effective widely-used system of electronic tolling, which is not yet planned.

FOLLOWUP: a local correspondent says we didn’t go far enough last issue (TRn;#46 Feb 00 p12) in outlining problems in Japanese implementation of electronic tolling (ET). We focussed on the goldplating of their smartcard-interfacing transponder which threatens to make it far too expensive (at more than $250/ea) to be widely enough adopted. Another problem is the toll authorities’ lack of legal authority to photograph license plates, and issue citations by mail. The present plan in Tokyo’s MEPC system and on the national Nihon Doro Kodan network is to implement ET with gates.

But without camera enforcement any vehicle without a functioning transponder in an ET-only lane will be kept in the toll lane by the gate until a toll attendant has walked over and written down the license plate number and gotten the driver’s license details. The patrons stuck behind the offender seem likely to exhibit furious toll rage at the delays. ET of this kind seems destined to produce customer/tollster confrontation, rather than customer satisfaction.