Tōkyō-wan-Aqua-Line
The Tōkyō-wan-Aqua-Line ( Japanese 東京湾 ア ク ア ラ イ ン Tōkyō-wan akuarain ) is a combination of bridge and tunnel over the Tokyo Bay in Japan and with almost 10 km the longest submarine tunnel in the world for car traffic. The tunnel itself is 9.5 km long, followed by a 4.4 km long bridge. The transition from bridge to tunnel happens on the artificial island Umi hotaru ( 海 ほ た る , literally sea fireflies ). There are numerous restaurants and viewing platforms on Umi hotaru. The characteristic, widely visible wind tower ( 風 の 塔 Kaze no tō ), which protrudes out of the water roughly in the middle between the island and the mainland opposite the bridge, serves to ventilate the tunnel.
In the tube, 60 meters below the surface of the water, the national road 409 runs with two lanes in each direction. The structure connects the industrial region of Kawasaki , located south of Tokyo in Kanagawa prefecture , with Kisarazu in Chiba prefecture on the Bōsō peninsula .
The construction of the Tōkyō-wan-Aqua-Line will shorten the travel time between these two important industrial regions to 15 minutes or a distance of 15.4 kilometers. Previously, the route was about 100 kilometers long, as you had to bypass the entire Tokyo Bay and inevitably cross the center of Tokyo. A ferry crossing takes an hour. Since the project was completed, traffic on selected routes through Tokyo has decreased.
Planning for the construction began in 1966, the work itself began in 1989 and finished in May 1997. In December 1997 the road was opened to traffic. The cost of the project amounted to the equivalent of around 10 billion euros.
The expectations that were placed on the Aqualine, however, are not fully met. Far fewer vehicles than originally thought use the abbreviation, which is mainly due to the high tolls . The TBA is thus symptomatic of decades of Japanese government policy, which has carried out economic development through enormous expenditure on infrastructure projects . In this way, numerous tunnels, bridges and highways were created in the Tokyo region, which are maintained by semi-private government companies and are therefore subject to tolls. These operating companies are complex cartels made up of former government officials who may charge excessive fees due to a lack of competition .
The connection is operated by the East Nippon Expressway . Since August 1, 2009, the toll for normal cars has been 3000 yen for cash payers and 800 yen for users of the ETC electronic toll system.
Web links
Individual evidence
- ↑ Announcement of the charging experiment for ETC users ( memento of February 3, 2014 in the Internet Archive ) on the website of the East Nippon Expressway Company.
Coordinates: 35 ° 27 ′ 47 ″ N , 139 ° 52 ′ 31 ″ E