I think Japan has started to learn from the US a lot, rail lines have become pretty expensive (recent example being the Tokyo Oedo subway line costing about $30

I think Japan has started to learn from the US a lot, rail lines have become pretty expensive (recent example being the Tokyo Oedo subway line costing about $300 million per kilometer). At least things actually get built though. It's very depressing to see the length of infrastructure projects (decades even in Europe), but maybe it's always been like this...