On the northern Japanese island of Hokkaido, the motorway from Honbetsu to Ashoro is engineered to the highest standards: fully separated intersections, a hard shoulder and stretches of dual carriageway for overtaking. All it lacks is vehicles.
Intended as the first stage of a highway reaching almost to the Sea of Okhotsk, the 13.2km stretch is used by about 1,300 vehicles a day, similar to a main road in Scotland’s Outer Hebrides.
The motorway marks the apex of Japan’s massive programme of public works in the 1990s and early 2000s — and as pressure mounts on other countries around the world to embark on major spending drives to combat the economic impact of coronavirus, it also offers a lesson in what can go wrong.
Last month the IMF urged advanced economies to spend big and quick on simple capital projects to boost demand and jobs, and then plan longer-term digital and green technology infrastructure to increase the future scope for growth. And governments should worry…