Tokyo, Japan's Bridges: Shinmei Bridge across the Yoko Jikkengawa

March 2012 (35.705 Degrees, 139.819 Degrees) Shinmei Bashi

We have turned south onto the Yoko jikken-gawa (横十間川), which translates as 'Jitsuken beside the river.'  The canal we were just on is the Kita jikken-gawa (北十間川), which translates as 'Jitsuken river north.' Both of these canals were dug during the Edo Period (between 1603 and 1868) when Japan was ruled by the Tokugawa shogunate. Tokyo, which used to be called Edo, was their home and so they conducted many civil works to improve the city, including these canals, perhaps meant to help drain the area.

We passed under the Yanagishima Bridge as we turned into the canal. The next bridge is the blue, three span, steel girder Shinmei Bridge, which I didn't photograph. However the next bridge as we continued south is the Kurihara Bashi, a concrete box girder bridge that crosses the Yokojikken-gawa in a single span. The bridge carries the busy Kasuga Dori Road, which ends on the east side of the river.

The river is lined with apartment buildings. I read somewhere that this area has one of the highest population densities in the world, which seems hard to believe. The river banks are covered in reeds and trees, perhaps to help clean the canal, which used to be poisoned with dioxins.

Tokyo, Japan's Bridges: Shinmei Bridge across the Yoko Jikkengawa by Mark Yashinsky is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 3.0 United States License.