Construction

One of the more puzzling things I've seen since coming to Japan is the seemingly endless construction work. On one of the local roads within my town the construction has been going on since November of last year and they're STILL at it! All this road work seems to have led nowhere. The street is in even worse condition than when they started what with the bumps and potholes that have magically appeared within it.On the 192, the road most used to get to Tokushima City from our end of Shikoku, construction decoratively dots the road, creating the need to detour into the oncoming lane. The 192 consists of a whopping 2 lanes so detours mean long waits while one lane is allowed to proceed. Depending on the time of day that you're traveling, the waits can be more frequent.  The strange thing about all this is that they seem to be tearing and ripping apart perfectly fine roads, in order to repave and repaint the roads to a beautiful hue.  They are still reconstructing a 1km stretch of road that was just fine as it was but now the road is made up of strips of faded gray asphalt to startlingly new, black asphalt.

Another thing about construction is that it seems to be a “make-work” program for the Japanese.  A length of 300-500m features bright flashy lights, akin to what you would see in Las Vegas as well as at least 7 workers.  3 of these workers carry either white and red flags or a flashing red baton.  Their job is primarily to guide traffic on either side of the yellow line.  This is fine when the stretch of road is long but when it isn’t it hardly seems necessary to have that many people frantically waving white flags to tell you, yes, you can drive through.  

People are also employed in large parking lots to guide traffic out.  This seems like a nice gesture but for this Canadian who has managed to get out of sizable parking lots all on her lonesome, the attention is more annoying.  You aren’t allowed to leave until these baton-holding officials give you the go ahead.  They seem to think you need an awful lot of room to make a simple turn.  I was made to wait and wait while several good chances went by.  In the end I was ready to run over these men, while screaming with impatience.

It makes you wonder, isn’t there somewhere else all this funding for construction could be spent?  Rather than needlessly repaving roads and having 3 people tell you you’re allowed to drive?    Maybe it’s just me.