Tokyo Expressway to Become a Linear Park

[M II A II R II K]

Ginza To Get Its Own High Line


April 5, 2021

Read More: https://japanpropertycentral.com/202...own-high-line/

One of the more well-known expressways in downtown Tokyo is about to be converted into an elevated pedestrian promenade and greenway, similar to the High Line park in New York City. Tentatively named Tokyo Sky Corridor, the Tokyo metropolitan government aims to have this pedestrian park in Ginza completed sometime between 2030 and 2040.

- The corridor will replace the Tokyo Expressway, also known as the KK Expressway – a 2-kilometer semicircular route that winds its way around Ginza. The idea for the expressway began in 1951 as part of Ginza’s post-war revival plan and to alleviate congestion on surrounding expressways. Built atop reclaimed rivers, the expressway partially reopened in 1959 and was fully completed by 1966. There are no tolls. Instead, tenant rents from the retail stores below the road go towards maintenance and operating costs. There are a total of 10 tenant buildings underneath the expressway, including Ginza Corridor Street, Ginza Inz, and Ginza Five, with a total floor area of 100,000 sqm. With the expressway above the Nihonbashi river going underground by 2035, the KK Expressway in Ginza will no longer be needed.

.....

[Yuri]

Down here in São Paulo we have an elevated 2x2 highway, cutting through a very dense urban canyon over 3 km. Over the decades it was a source of urban decay, a process that hurt Downtown São Paulo a lot.

Anyway, finally the region is coming back, and this elevated highway has been closed every evening and during all the weekends and the locals took it as an urban park and it’s been a great urban experience. No green, only raw urbanity.

[llamaorama]

Elevated linear parks are the stupidest urban design fad ever. Someone proposed this for Houston too.

Let's be honest. A good urban park is an accessible, active space. Outside of Manhattan or Tokyo an elevated bridge is really not going to be surrounded by enough density or energy that would get people to go up a flight of stairs or piss soaked elevator to just wander around a landscaped plaza with some pampa grass growing in pea gravel. No shade, no toilets, just a fancy ass sidewalk that cost a billion dollars. Even in Tokyo would people really want this

It's also a really shitty way to waste scarce taxpayer dollars earmarked to parks and recreation. Modifying and then maintaining a huge concrete viaduct structure must be very expensive. You could get much more park, or much more quality features in a park, elsewhere. So much for having youth sports leagues or saving 500 acres of forest from development, we gotta spend all that to put landscaping on top of an old freeway.

Finally what do you do with the space underneath? In Manhattan or Tokyo levels of urban intensity life will find a way. But anywhere else, and especially if they did this in Houston, I just foresee it as creating an area of darkness and homeless congregation or parking. If they did turn it into a public market or create some other retail feature, that just cannabalizes demand for that from other areas.

[C.]

Nice!

[Segun]

Originally Posted by llamaorama

, we gotta spend all that to put landscaping on top of an old freeway.

Finally what do you do with the space underneath? In Manhattan or Tokyo levels of urban intensity life will find a way. But anywhere else, and especially if they did this in Houston, I just foresee it as creating an area of darkness and homeless congregation or parking. If they did turn it into a public market or create some other retail feature, that just cannabalizes demand for that from other areas.

The 606 in Chicago is very successful. It doesn’t function as a park, but people go out their way to walk it.

[MolsonExport]

The Cheonggyecheon stream (Seoul) conversion from Freeway to refurbished creek was immensely successful. One of my favorite attractions when I visited Seoul.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cheonggyecheon

Cheonggyecheon restoration work brought balance to the areas south and north of the stream. During the modernization era, downtown Seoul was divided into two parts, north–south, based on their features and function. The restoration helped to join these parts to create a new urban structure connecting the cultural and environmental resources in northern and southern areas of the stream (Hwang n.d.), resulting in a balanced and sustainable development of northern and southern areas of the Han River.

The project sped up traffic around the city when the motorway was removed. It has been cited as a real-life example of Braess's paradox*

* "For each point of a road network, let there be given the number of cars starting from it and the destination of the cars. Under these conditions, one wishes to estimate the distribution of traffic flow. Whether one street is preferable to another depends not only on the quality of the road, but also on the density of the flow. If every driver takes the path that looks most favourable to them, the resultant running times need not be minimal. Furthermore, it is indicated by an example that an extension of the road network may cause a redistribution of the traffic that results in longer individual running times."

[Yuri]

Originally Posted by Segun

The 606 in Chicago is very successful. It doesn’t function as a park, but people go out their way to walk it.

In São Paulo's case, if the elevated was demolished, it would turn into a regular boulevard and we'd lose the this new improvised "park".

Pictures of it, with and without cars: https://www.google.com/search?q=minh...w=1600&bih=740

It was a massive mistake to build it back in the 1970's, but now, finally when the city embraced it, I don't think it should go anymore.

[muppet]

The original and largest -the Promenade Plantee in Paris inaugurated in 1993. The arches house trendy stores.

[ardecila]

The 606 in Chicago feels a lot more like the Promenade Plantee than the High Line. No high-concept angular modern designs, no preserved industrial remnants. Just a nice linear greenspace with lots of plantings, meant for strolling and exercising, not for taking selfies. It's not totally traditional in style but it's a lot more normative "park" style design.

[plutonicpanda]

What a horrible proposal and I hope backlash against this forms in time to stop it. This needs to remain an elevated freeway, IMO.

[SpongeG]

Seoul also has the Seoullo 7017, an old highway transformed into a pedestrian walkway/park.


decodedmagazine.com


lh3.googleusercontent.com


leekuanyewworldcityprize.gov.sg

[hauntedheadnc]

Those big-city highways-turned-parks are nice and all, but they just don't hold a candle to the Lake Lure Flowering Bridge:


Source.

I think that when even the dinkiest little nowhere town in Appalachia is getting in on the action, it's a bonafide worldwide phenomenon.