Expressways in Japan

 

In my post last week I mentioned that we rented a van from MWR. I wanted to share more about that. Its a really nice benefit we have on base. As you might recall we bought a small car when we first arrived. We call it the Purple Grape and its about the size of a grape! It works well for getting around town - running to the store, or driving to church, but its not super comfortable for a longer trip. 

So having the option to rent a bigger vehicle is great. MWR rents several different types of vehicles. They have 8 passenger vans, a 5 passenger Prius, small trucks, larger vans, and some others. We have rented a couple of times and its been very nice!

BUT, the other big reason for renting a vehicle before heading out on a road trip has to do with the way Japan pays for its roads.

BACKGROUND: There are plenty of public "free" roads. I think you can get to almost any place by taking the regular roads, but if you want to get somewhere efficiently and in the least amount of time you need to take "expressways". The expressways are very nice and well maintained. They are similar to US interstate freeways in that speed limits are higher, they are directionally divided with multiple lanes in each direction, and generally have no traffic signals. But, the expressways are NOT FREE.

Its not completely clear how to find out how much the tolls will be on any given day to a certain destination. Honestly, it seems a bit random. Going on road trips with some friends from the base we found they like to play a Price Is Right type game. As we approach a toll both everyone in the car makes a guess as to how much the toll will be without going over. To give you an idea - if you've been driving for about an hour on an expressway and you come to a toll booth, the cost will probably be $25 - $50. Sometimes you hit several toll booths in short order and pay $3- $10 for short segments. Like I said, it seems very random.

Now, if you rent a vehicle from MWR it comes with Toll Vouchers! Yes, you just give the toll attendant one of your vouchers and no matter how much the toll is, it's covered. I guess the US government has some kind of deal with the Japanese expressway people on these vouchers. Its a bit of a pain because you have to log the date and time of use and you have to turn in all unused vouchers at the end of your trip. They track them carefully so you don't game the system. But, if you are going for a long trip the vouchers can be worth much more than the cost of the rental!

One more thing I wanted to share about Japanese expressways is the REST STOPS. Since you pay to be on the road, you don't want to pull off (then you would have to pay again to get back on) so they have these amazing rest stops in  the middle section of the expressways. We didn't take a picture of the big one we stopped at but I found some pics online of several different rest stop along the expressways: 

These pics show pretty much exactly what we experienced when we stopped (well, ours did not have the Ferris Wheel). I could not believe how nice the bathrooms were! They had special changing areas and showers if you wanted to freshen up. The food courts were huge and had so many options plus gift shops and parking attendants directing traffic. 

I can't imagine what Japanese folks must be thinking when they pull into a standard US rest stop! Must be quite a shock to find only a vending machine, a stinky toilet, and place for your pet to poop.