NHK WORLD-JAPAN reports that the Linear Chuo Shinkansen, Central Japan Railway's next-generation maglev line, has cleared the obstacle that stalled it for years. Shizuoka Governor Yasutomo Suzuki told the prefectural assembly he would allow construction of the roughly 8.9 kilometre section running through the prefecture, and that the government would sign a natural-environment conservation agreement with JR Central, the last step before work can begin. Designed to run at up to 500 km/h, the line is meant to connect Tokyo's Shinagawa station to Nagoya in around 40 minutes, roughly half of today's Shinkansen time. Construction had been blocked over concerns that tunnelling would reduce water volume in the Oi River, a dispute NHK notes had run on for years without resolution.
Two pieces of context put the milestone in perspective. First, this is only the first leg. The line is planned to eventually reach Osaka, a route news reports say would cut Tokyo to Osaka travel to around 67 minutes, the point at which maglev seriously threatens domestic air travel on Japan's busiest corridor. Second, the delay has been costly in time as much as money. The Tokyo to Nagoya section was once targeted to open in 2027; JR Central now expects the Shizuoka work alone to take at least a decade, pushing the opening to 2036 at the earliest. Japanese news reports say the two sides planned to sign the conservation agreement on July 18, formally clearing the way for boring to resume. For a project first approved years ago, a green light and a near-term ride are very different things.
NHK reports the approval reverses the stance of Suzuki's predecessor and follows JR Central's fixes for issues such as safeguarding water resources, which the prefecture approved by March. The broadcast does not present the restart as trouble-free. It points to construction problems elsewhere on the route: part of a road buckled during tunnel excavation in Tokyo's Shinagawa Ward, and groundwater gushed out at a site in Gifu Prefecture in 2023, drying up well water and causing the ground to subside, with tunnelling there still suspended. NHK also reports the price tag has climbed, citing a 2014 estimate of about 5.5 trillion yen for the Shinagawa to Nagoya section that had nearly doubled to about 11 trillion yen, which the report converts to roughly $68 billion, on rising material and labour costs. Local sake producers who rely on the Oi River remain wary. Figures are as presented by NHK.
Bottom line: This is a real turning point after nearly a decade of deadlock, and the 40-minute Tokyo to Nagoya promise is the kind of number that reshapes how a country moves. But temper the excitement: a mid-2030s opening means anyone picturing a maglev ride soon should plan around 2036 at the earliest, and the cost curve and tunnelling troubles NHK flags are warnings, not footnotes. The engineering will almost certainly get there. Whether it arrives on time and on budget is the question that has dogged this line from the start, and nothing this week changes that.
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