Tokyo, Japan's Bridges: Higashi Ojima Eki Bridge over the Kyu Nakagawa (1)

March 2012 (35.690 Degrees, 139.848 Degrees) Higashi Ojima Station Bridge

In early March, I scheduled a canoe trip along some of Tokyo's canals. The days before my trip were so cold and rainy that my friends laughed at my plan. However the day of the trip turned out to be just right for paddling.

The start of my journey was just north of the Higashi Ojima Train Station, which is a three span steel box girder bridge on oddly-shaped concrete piers over the Kyu Nakagawa (see photo above). Actually the bridge is just part of a long, elevated structure that carries the Toei Shinjuku subway line through Tokyo. The station was built in 1978.

My friend Masanobu-san had arranged for us to paddle in a figure eight (the red and blue polygons on the map), which are ancient canals that go between the Sumidagawa and the Arakawa. Masa's plan turned out to be a little too ambitious as there was so much work on the canals that we had to portage around several construction sites and we were finally forced to turn around by a closed floodgate before we got very far west (along the blue polygon) on the Onagi-gawa.

The map above shows the location of the Higashi Oshima Station south of the entry point for our journey. Over the next few days we'll study some of the bridges (and the history) along Tokyo's ancient canals.

Tokyo, Japan's Bridges: Higashi Ojima Eki Bridge over the Kyu Nakagawa (1) by Mark Yashinsky is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 3.0 United States License.

Tokyo, Japan's Bridges: Arakawa Estuary Bridges (2)

June 2011 (35.647 Degrees, 139.845 Degrees) Arakawa Truss Bridge

The Kosoku Arakawa Truss Bay Shore Bridge (on the right) was seriously damaged during the March 2011 East Japan Earthquake. 

A group of engineers are standing under the deck for the obligatory group photo. The bridge is an 840 m long seven span truss bridge with a drop-in center span. The truss elements are held together with gusset plates that were damaged by the seismic forces. Fortunately, the bridge did not fall apart and the Metropolitan Expressway Company Ltd. was able to replace all the damaged members.

Tokyo, Japan's Bridges: Arakawa Estuary Bridges (2) by Mark Yashinsky is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 3.0 United States License.

Tokyo, Japan's Bridges: Arakawa Estuary Bridges (1)

March 2012 (35.647 Degrees, 139.845 Degrees) Arakawa Estuary Bridges

We've finally arrived at the mouth of the Arakawa where a bunch of bridges are all squeezed together. It's odd how often river crossings come in groups. It must be that the narrow right-of-way through densely populated cities force all the bridges to cluster together.

In the picture above, three photos of the Arakawa Estuary are stitched together by Adobe Photoshop. You can see (from the left) the Shuto Expressway, a tall ferris wheel, an incinerator, and a half dozen bridges crossing the river. We'll take a closer look (from up on the Arakawa Truss Bridge) tomorrow.

Tokyo, Japan's Bridges: Arakawa Estuary Bridges (1) by Mark Yashinsky is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 3.0 United States License.