Aging infrastructure a major roadblock to Japan's future

When collapsing ceiling panels killed nine people in a tunnel on a busy expressway in central Japan in 2012, the government pledged to inspect and repair aging infrastructure around the country.

But, a decade later, experts warn progress has been slow due to financial constraints and labor shortages, with tunnels, bridges and roads nationwide still needing urgent attention. Indeed, the government's own findings show roughly 40% of Japan's tunnels require crucial repairs to ensure their safety.

The experts are urging authorities to accelerate infrastructure investment, prioritizing projects that fit with the nation's declining population while being careful to avoid wasteful spending. Cutting-edge technologies such as drones and sensors to detect structural deterioration are seen as key to making maintenance more efficient.

With many sections built in time for the 1964 Olympics, Tokyo's Metropolitan Expressway system is still used by around 1 million vehicles a day and offers a vivid example of the kinds of challenges facing officials.

One cold, windy day in mid-January, workers were busy driving bolts into bridge beams on the part of the system connecting Haneda Airport on Tokyo Bay to the heart of the capital, attempting to fight decades of corrosion caused by seawater.

Infrastructure under the management of local governments is a particular concern. While the central government had started repair work on 60% of bridges found to have problems by the end of fiscal 2020, work had only begun on 30% of such bridges under municipal supervision. "We are short on budget and manpower, though the number of facilities in need of repair keeps rising," said a local government official.

At the end of 2020, the government put together a five-year plan to spend 15 trillion yen on a set of disaster prevention and mitigation measures.

But Japan's investment in public works has been dropping even as other countries ramp up spending. Japan's total plummeted about 40% between 1996 and 2019 -- the only one of the world's leading seven economies to post a decline. Spending increased fourfold in the U.K. and by 2.3 times in the U.S. in the same period.