The work to construct the projected Shinkansen lines, which had remained stopped towards the end of the JNR era, were restarted, and the Tohoku Shinkansen line (between Morioka and Hachinohe in 2002), the Hokuriku Shinkansen line (as the Nagano Shinkansen line in 1997) and the Kyushu Shinkansen line (between Shin-Yatsushiro and Kagoshima-Chuo in 2004) started their partial operations, respectively.
国鉄末期に建設が凍結されていた整備新幹線は工事が再開され、東北新幹線（盛岡-八戸・2002年）・北陸新幹線（長野新幹線・1997年）・九州新幹線（新八代-鹿児島中央・2004年）が部分開業した。