Tokyo, Japan's Bridges: Kototoi Bridge across the Sumida River (2)

March 2012 (35.714 Degrees, 139.803 Degrees) Kototoi Bridge

A closer look at the Kototoi Bridge. We can see the superstructure is composed of four haunched steel plate girders on fixed steel bearings.  The bridge must duck down at the east end to get under the elevated Metropolitan Expressway. Each bridge across the Sumida is unique with a different color, superstructure, railing, and lamppost.

The name of the bridge comes from a short poem (tanka) by Ariwara no Narihira from the 9th century, who came to the Sumida and enquired (kototoi) of the seagulls whether his love still lived.

Tokyo, Japan's Bridges: Kototoi Bridge across the Sumida River (2) by Mark Yashinsky is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 3.0 United States License.