Plans to build a maglev line between Tokyo and Nagoya may be threatened by local opposition. The proposed route would go through the Shizuoka prefecture, where people fear that a long South Alps Tunnel required for the train will affect their water supplies.
This famous scene of the Shinkansen in front of Mount Fuji is in Shizuoka prefecture. Photo by MaedaAkihiko.
Leading the opposition is Shizuoka Governor Heita Kawakatsu, who won re-election this week in a campaign where the rail line was a major issue. Kawakatsu represents a minority party while his opponent was endorsed by the Liberal Democratic party, which has been the majority party in Japan for many years.
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The prefecture also depends heavily on rice production, and a disruption of water supplies could hurt that crop, which depends heavily on water. Since locally produced rice is almost sacred in Japan, such worries are given a heavy weight.
Kawakatsu is an economic historian and writer in the Nihonjinron school of thought, which promotes ideas about Japan that are roughly similar to American exceptionalism, that is, that Japan (or America) is unusual or unique compared with the rest of the world. I’m not sure how that influences his view on the maglev, but the feeling of many locals is that the maglev is not really necessary but is more of an ego project on the part of JR Central and the Japanese government.
The project is already suffering from a 28-percent cost overrun and low ridership during the pandemic is making the entire program questionable. JR Central had originally planned to finance it entirely itself, but the government has already stepped in with loans, suggesting that the project isn’t as commercially feasible as JR Central originally claimed. This combined with the opposition to the South Alps Tunnel may end up killing the project.
