ETC: Are the tolls on Japanese freeway going flat?

I live and work in Japan.

My coworker told me that Japanese Freeways were going to start charging a flat fee (between 1000 and 2000Y) to travel anywhere (at least anywhere on Honshu) by car.

Does anyone know if this is true? He said it was to spur the tourism economy in Japan. If this is true it would cause me to travel a LOT more. I don't yet have an ETC card, and even if I did the tolls in this country are completely out of hand. If you ask me it is highway robbery (quite literally). After all where do my taxes go?

Anyways if anyone knows about this please share. This should be big news for anyone who lives in Japan. Also if a ETC card is necessary for the flat rate please tell!

Cheers!

WiX

WHy didn'y you Google it for a quick answer? I found the answer in one query.

Japan Times said:

The stimulus package Prime Minister Taro Aso unveiled in October includes a plan to reduce tolls to \1,000 and around \1,500 on regional expressways on weekends and national holidays. Tolls on weekdays would be cut by around 30 percent.

Click to expand...

The story goes into more detail. This should answer your question, but it is only a proposal right now.

My initial searching was using "...ETC..." which got MANY hits because of "etcetera". I guess I need to brush up on my query skills.
Anyway it doesn't say when it will happen. My kanji reading skills are not enough to read a newspaper, so it's hard for me to get Japanese news from the source.

Still doesn't say if/when the proposal may be inacted. I'll do some more searching tonight.

Thanks.

It started as of Saturday. Reports from Japanese press indicate a near doubling of the number of cars with few resulting traffic tie ups. The amount spent on highway construction these last two decades may be justified yet.


http://search.japantimes.co.jp/cgi-bin/nn20090327f1.html