Toyosu Ōhashi

Completed November 2008, this 550-metre road bridge spans the Harumi Canal between Harumi 5-chome in Chuo City and Toyosu 6-chome in Kōtō City. Its five-span continuous steel-deck V-leg box girder gives the crossing an unusually light silhouette. The vehicle lanes opened in November 2018 as part of Ring Road 2; a pedestrian and cycling path has been accessible since before the road opening.

Use

Bridge

Area

Chuo City / Kōtō City, Tokyo

Completed

2008

A V-Leg Bridge Over Harumi Canal

Toyosu Ōhashi spans 550 metres of the Harumi Canal between Harumi 5-chome in Chuo City and Toyosu 6-chome in Kōtō City. The bridge was completed in November 2008 and forms part of Tokyo Metropolitan Route 484 (Ring Road 2). Its structural form is a five-span continuous steel-deck box girder with V-shaped legs — steel struts that splay outward from the piers to receive the box girder above. The maximum span is 130 metres, the carriageway is 32.3 metres wide, and observation decks along the sides widen the bridge to 36.1 metres at those points. The V-leg geometry, combined with the shallow steel deck, gives the bridge an open, calligraphic quality against the bay sky. The observation areas were designed not just for passing through but for pausing — the Harumi Canal opens on one side and the waterfront skyline extends on the other.

A pedestrian and cycling path was accessible from an early stage, though vehicle traffic did not begin until November 2018, when Ring Road 2 opened provisionally between Tsukiji and Toyosu — an opening timed to coincide with the relocation and launch of the Toyosu Market. The roughly decade-long gap between structural completion and road opening reflects the complications of land adjustment procedures and the protracted negotiations surrounding the controversial Tsukiji market move.

Linking a Transformed Waterfront

Today, Toyosu Ōhashi is one of the few public crossing points over the Harumi Canal, and the neighbourhood it connects has changed almost beyond recognition from the one that existed when the bridge was designed. On the Harumi side, the Olympic athletes’ village for the Tokyo 2020 Games has become Harumi Flag, a massive new residential district, with Park Tower Harumi and other high-rise towers framing the waterfront. The bridge now carries daily commuters and neighbourhood residents where it once served a quieter industrial waterfront.

On the Toyosu side, City Towers Toyosu The Twin and the rest of the bay-facing tower cluster stand close by. Further south, Harumi Ōhashi — a two-tier bridge that carries both a general road and Shuto Expressway Route 10 — completes a corridor along this stretch of inner Tokyo Bay. Standing on the observation deck of Toyosu Ōhashi on a clear day, the trusses of Tokyo Gate Bridge come into view across the water, a reminder that this canal sits inside a much larger system of waterfront infrastructure.

Summary

Toyosu Ōhashi was completed in November 2008 and measures 550 metres across the Harumi Canal. Its five-span V-leg box girder structure — distinctive in the Tokyo urban landscape — gives the crossing a notably light silhouette. Vehicle traffic began in November 2018 with the Ring Road 2 opening; a pedestrian and cycling path has been available from early on. The bridge now sits at the centre of one of Tokyo’s most rapidly transformed waterfront corridors, and a slow crossing on foot rewards the traveller with bay-wide views and a sense of the scale at which this part of the city has been rebuilt.

For accommodation in the Toyosu and Harumi area, Rakuten Travel covers the waterfront hotels well.