Bring this scene home, share it as a gift, or license it for your project:
Layers of Motion: Tokyo’s Urban Flow from Above
交差する歴史：東山道から国道4号線へ
This intersection is a typical example of how multiple two-lane streets converge from three or more angles in Tokyo. It’s quite different from cities like Sapporo in Hokkaido or Nagoya in Aichi Prefecture, where most streets that I have driven on follow a grid layout with clean 90-degree intersections.
Driving through central Tokyo—especially on a rainy night—can be daunting for the uninitiated. Navigating these multi-street intersections, where three or even five roads merge at a single point, requires careful attention.
In this photo, northbound traffic is zipping by on National Route 4, a toll-free highway that originates in Nihonbashi, Tokyo’s historic commercial district, and stretches 738.5 kilometers (458.9 miles) to the northern tip of Honshu. This makes it Japan’s longest national toll-free highway. Roughly half of Route 4 follows the path of the much older Tōsandō, a historic road dating back to the Asuka period (538–710).
Nihonbashi itself is named after a bridge located just a few blocks from the Imperial Palace. In 1604, the Tokugawa shogunate designated it as the starting point for major transportation routes. Later, during the Meiji era (1868–1912), it was officially recognized as the reference point for measuring distances on all national highways. Even today, when driving along these highways, you’ll notice slender signposts marking how far you are from the center of Nihonbashi Bridge.
Beneath the asphalt in this scene, Ueno Station’s Tokyo Metro Hibiya Line runs underground. In Tokyo and my home city of Yokohama, it’s common for stretches of subway lines to follow the same routes as surface-level streets, weaving through the dense metropolitan landscape.
Above me, where I took this shot, the Ueno Route of the Shuto Expressway runs overhead. This elevated toll road is part of a vast network of expressways looping around Tokyo, consisting mostly of overpasses that wind between high-rise office towers and apartment buildings, with occasional underpasses and tunnels.
I still remember my first drive on the Shuto Expressway in 1985, just after its circular loop was connected to the Joban Expressway in Saitama Prefecture. That night, five or six of my car-enthusiast friends and I took our tuned sports coupes and sedans onto the freshly paved expressway, enjoying the thrill of driving under a starry summer sky.
Even now, I find myself amazed by the ingenuity of the engineers who designed and built these transportation networks—stacking them high above the ground, threading them through the urban core at street level, and tunneling deep underground, all within the space constraints and astronomical costs of a city like Tokyo.
- Location: Ueno Station, Taito-ku, Tokyo
- Timestamp: 14:57・2024/12/10
- Fujifilm X100V with 5% diffusion filter
- ISO 160 for 1.0 sec. at ƒ/16
- Pro Negative High film simulation
References:
Copyright Notice for All Images:
© 2011-2025 Pix4Japan. All rights reserved.
Unauthorized use for AI training is strictly prohibited.
Visit www.pix4japan.com to learn more.
