Boosting the Economy through the Free Use of the Aqua-line Tunnel: Conceptualizing the Reform of the Tokyo Bay Distribution System with an Aim Toward the Enlargement of the East Asian Economic Sphere

ABSTRACT

The approaching privatization of the Japan Highway Public Corporation2(JH) is an opportunity for the revitalization of the public highway infrastructure. It is necessary right now to plan concrete steps for the renovation of the current system, a relic of the past that was built in the rush of high economic growth, into a more efficient infrastructure that will actually work to the advantage of the citizens. Unlike railroads, moreover, the benefits that roads provide extend beyond the level of the municipal, prefectural, and city areas, and into to the broader zones of national regions.

The inefficiency of Japan's current distribution system, particularly the system for loading and unloading in the Tokyo metropolitan area, has become a weak link in the efforts to enlarge the East Asian economic sphere. A reform plan for the Tokyo metropolitan distribution system based on the elimination of tolls for the Aqua-line tunnel, a route that influences the largest regions of Japan, would be an effective way to reinvigorate the area.

In the framework of this plan, the first step is to establish new highway holding companies. The capital will be put up by related local governments who would raise funds through the issuing of municipal bonds, and by associated corporations through in kind real estate investments. As for assets, The Aqua-Line property would be provided by JH to the holding companies through low cost handovers or leases. Redemptions and dividends will be generated in turn from the new business activity incited by the elimination of tolls. Instead of tolls, revenue would be appropriated from the indirect benefits of heightened business activity.

Not only would eliminating tolls help restore the dead stock economy of the Tokyo Bay district, but it would even moderate the heat island effect of the metropolitan area by reducing traffic congestion; though quantifying this may be difficult.

The weakness in the current methods of real estate development is revealed by the lean towards oversupply in residential and business property markets. The energy and the efficiency of a new distribution system - e.g., the introduction of new floating mega-container bases - that would link Tokyo Bay, the throat of the metropolitan area, with the inland regions, in combination with the development of new amusement facilities in the area, would lead to such beneficial effects as real estate appreciation, improved development benefits, and an increase in regional tax revenue.

1. The Aqua-line is 15km transport way - part underwater tunnel, part over-water bridge - that spans Tokyo Bay, joining Ukishima, Kawasaki City (Kanagawa Prefecture), with Kisaratsu City (Chiba Prefecture).
2. The corporation, otherwise known as Nihon Doro Kodan, was established in 1965.