Posted Sep 12, 2020, 3:35 PM
|
|
Registered User
|
|
Join Date: Aug 2002
Location: Toronto
Posts: 52,200
|
|
What the World Can Learn From Life Under Tokyo’s Rail Tracks
What the World Can Learn From Life Under Tokyo’s Rail Tracks
September 10, 2020
By Max Zimmerman
Read More: https://www.bloomberg.com/news/featu...-s-rail-tracks
Quote:
The spaces beneath elevated railways generally get a bad rap. At least that’s the case in the U.S. and mainland Europe, where they are often considered dark, dangerous and noisy. In Tokyo, however, the undertracks’ reputation is rather different. These spaces are more than just storage and parking. They are agglomerations of cozy restaurants and shops that are intimately tied to the identity of certain commercial districts. — Developments outside the city center have expanded the possibilities, too: Workshops, nurseries, college dormitories and medical clinics can all be found under the tracks.
- Japan’s first elevated rail was completed near Yurakucho in 1910. It was designed to house commercial facilities from the start; the first restaurant owner set up shop below the rail a decade later. As Japan’s economic growth accelerated in the 1950s and 1960s, the rail network boomed. Operators began to raise more trains to help ease congestion, integrating commercial facilities below some of their tracks. Since 1959, 112.2 kilometers (69.7 miles) of ground-level track have been elevated, according to government data. — In cities like New York and Chicago, railways often had to be built over existing roads leaving local residents complaining of noise, lack of sunlight, pollution and filth. Elevated highways in many U.S. cities face similar criticism, and European cities like Paris encountered the same problems in building elevated rails, with the added issue of preserving the historic architecture around them. While centrally planned, public projects like the Promenade Plantée and New York’s High Line aim to revive these areas, the undertracks were and still are largely considered to be dead spaces that divide neighborhoods.
- In Tokyo, elevated structures were often built over wider passages or in undeveloped areas outside the city center, leaving the space underneath available for use. Rather than creating a monolithic rail-and-road partition through the city, occupied undertrack spaces remained somewhat permeable and carried less of a stigma. — Newly raised lines in Tokyo’s suburbs, however, present similar issues to those in American cities. As of April 2020, 19.5 kilometers of overhead track was under construction with 12.8 kilometers more in the pipeline, according to government data. Many of these projects are located in residential neighborhoods, where rail operators have been less eager to develop the real estate. — In these areas, Tokyo’s conventional model of retailers and restaurants would be unprofitable. Instead, novel uses that draw on local characteristics and resources have sprung up. When a rail line near Kamata, a neighborhood not far from the city’s Haneda airport was elevated in 2012, the area beneath the track was initially slated to become parking.
- A group of local designers, architects, artists and businessmen proposed leveraging the area’s base of small factories and craftsmen. The result was Koca, a coworking space aimed at connecting creatives with each other and local workshops that can serve their needs. — It’s just one example of the practice. Under a stretch of the Chuo Line, which reaches deep into western Tokyo, East Japan Railway Co. has developed not just its own shopping complex but also student dormitories serving nearby universities as well as a nursery, an event space, shared offices, restaurants and public seating. In Nerima Ward, a highly residential area of western Tokyo, Seibu Railway Co. opened a “medical mall” with three specialized clinics and a pharmacy, reducing residents’ need to travel to hospitals for minor issues. — One of the lessons is that when you have these kind of difficult spaces, these gaps or cracks in the city where somehow public space doesn’t work, let many entrepreneurs in, giving them very low rental prices and giving them freedom.
.....
|
A bullet train pulls into Yurakucho station.
Yurakucho has many traditional izakaya eateries packed together under the tracks.
This vending machine outlet built under the tracks near Akihabara Station maximizes Tokyo's urban space.
Student dormitories are tucked under the track between Higashi-Koganei and Musashi-Koganei stations.
The Koca coworking space.
__________________
ASDFGHJK
|