Expo 2025 visitors to face a gauntlet of transportation and environmental pitfalls

American author Rita Mae Brown once wryly observed, "If it weren't for the last minute, nothing would get done."

As a current example of that axiom, Asahi Geino (March 20) offers a hazard map of potential pitfalls for visitors to the Osaka Expo, which is scheduled to open from April 13.

Over its seven-month run, the expo, situated on man-made "Dream Island"  (Yumeshima) in Osaka Bay, is projected to host 28.2 million visitors. But owing to poor planning and slipshod preparations, the magazine warns, visitors may face a host of inconveniences as well as potential dangers.

"Osaka city buses will run shuttle services to the site from rail stations, but questions have arisen over their safety," a manpower consultant identified only as "S" tells the magazine, adding "You won't catch me riding one."

To avoid overcrowding, the Osaka Metro has announced plans to increase the frequency of train runs to Yumeshima station at the site, from 16 per hour to a maximum of 24. That, however, poses yet another problem.

"There are absolutely not enough drivers for the Osaka Metro," a local news reporter confides. "What's more, some conductors have been trained to work as drivers, but if these inexperienced drivers are put to work on an overburdened line, it'll be a miracle if panics don't occur."

Isao Kinoshita, a journalist who's been covering the Expo site and its future development into an integrated resort, is also wary of potential glitches in transport.

"Expo visitors are expected to add another 9,000 passengers to metro lines during peak hours," he frets. "But the station platforms are dangerously narrow and I think the teachers who accompany groups of kids will really have their hands full."

It seems that to push up attendance, some 880,000 schoolchildren have been issued free passes, of whom perhaps half a million will visit.

The Kansai district is also notorious for its steaming summers. "One problem I see with the site is the lack of roofs to shield visitors from the sun, says journalist Fumikazu Nishitani. "From June, daily temperatures will exceed 30 degrees. People standing in lines to enter pavilions will suffer sunstroke. In the cases of small children and elderly people, that might even prove fatal."

Another potential hazard is that between June and August, the ring roof that encircles the expo site will be vulnerable to thunderstorms.

"If someone happens to be touching the ring's handrails at the moment lightning strikes, they might be fatally electrocuted," Nishitani warns.

He's also concerned over the many container docking facilities at the Osaka port area, which have been known to serve as gateways to such invasive species as fire ants, whose bites are painful and cause swelling. There's also the possibility of encountering Aedes aegypti mosquitoes -- a vector for transmitting numerous pathogens --  and venomous redback spiders native to Australia, among others.

"The zone with greenery and ponds in the center of the Expo site, named the 'Forest of Tranquility,' is likely to attract  hordes of mosquitoes," warns Nishitani. "The problem isn't just mosquitoes per se, but that they might spread tropical diseases like dengue fever."

If that weren't enough, in March 2024, an explosion occurred at a construction site. Its cause was determined to be methane gas emanating from the waste matter used for land reclamation. The "Green World" at the exposition site's western sector is located proximate to an area believed vulnerable to this kind of gas leakage, and has been deemed risky enough to require tightening of regulations on food preparation facilities cooking with  gas.

And being in Japan after all, one can never disregard the possibility of destructive earthquakes.

"Since Yumeshima is reclaimed land made from construction debris or dredged sand, it will be easily susceptible to liquefaction," remarks the aforementioned journalist Kinoshita. "In the event of a major earthquake, access roads would be rendered impassible, making safe evacuation difficult. The tunnels and bridges that connect to the site are about 3 kilometers in length, which would make it a hardship for children or the elderly to negotiate."

Meanwhile, Osaka Governor Hirofumi Yoshimura continues to beat the drum, noting that a drawing for free "test runs" ahead of the April 13 opening attracted 350,000 entries.

"For those who don't win free passes, we hope they'll come as regular visitors after the opening," Yoshimura remarked at a March 5 press conference.

© Japan Today