Dear Highway Department,
I’ve lived in Japan three different times and have developed a great admiration for the people of that country. They are innovative, energetic, and enterprising workers. But I’ve never considered them to be all that different from Americans. I certainly never would have considered them to be superhumanly productive.
So how do you explain the picture below?
On March 11 the biggest earthquake in the country’s history shook Japan. Six days later construction workers and engineers arrived at the Great Kanto Highway in Naka, which had a 150 meter crater-like crack. By March 23 the road was completely fixed.
My question for you, Highway Department, is why are the Japanese able to fix a 150-meter crack in six days while you can’t fix a 15 inch pothole in six months?
(Via: Inhabitat)
March 28th, 2011 | 12:04 pm
I’d be shocked if either your Highway Department would leave a 150-meter crack sitting around for six months, or the Japanese would fix every 15 inch pothole in six days.
March 28th, 2011 | 2:33 pm
If the pothole opened up in the late fall or the beginning of winter, it would be a complete waste of time and money to fix it before the temperatures stayed consistently above freezing.
But I don’t know where you live, so I don’t know if that’s the issue.
March 28th, 2011 | 5:19 pm
They could use a stronger union over there.
This rush rush rush work schedule is a sign of corporate greed and control.
LIVE BETTER…(at everyone else’s expense)…WORK UNION.
March 28th, 2011 | 5:24 pm
Well, part of it has to do with “meter” and “inch”. Working in inches, feet, yards and miles is more error prone than meters and millimeters (just divide by 1,000).
With all the time and money they waste on sticking with our broken collection of measurements we could have gone metric a decade ago and be saving money today.
March 28th, 2011 | 9:00 pm
Actually, when a freeway bridge was destroyed in the 1994 Northridge California earthquake, it was demolished, a new one designed, replaced and open within four months. Replacement of roadway is a relatively easy task, engineering is minimal compared to a bridge.
What is missing, is ten years of environmental impact reports; economic impact reports; three public hearings sixty days apart; alternate route hearings; a bidding process and the resultant litigation from homeowner’s groups, losing contractors and environmental groups.
That’s why it takes so long to build anything, the people demand their say.
March 29th, 2011 | 1:38 pm
If you take the total length of highway in Japan and divide by the number of citizens, and compare the the same ratio in the US, I think you would find that there is a lot less highway per person in Japan. If the same proportion of the population were devoted to highway repair, then each Japanese repairman would be responsible for less highway, and would be more likely to fix problems. We forget just how big our system is relative to the population.
March 31st, 2011 | 1:52 pm
“Well, part of it has to do with “meter” and “inch”. Working in inches, feet, yards and miles is more error prone than meters and millimeters”
You’re joking, right?
April 1st, 2011 | 3:03 am
[...] was wondering this myself after seeing how fast Japanese highway workers have been fixing earthquake ravaged roads. (Thanks, [...]
April 10th, 2011 | 7:05 pm
Unions…
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