Goshikizakura Bridge

A double-deck Nielsen-Lohse arch bridge spanning the Arakawa River on the C2 Central Circular Route, opened in December 2002 as the world's first bridge of its type.

A Cherry Blossom Name for a Record-Breaking Bridge

A bridge traces a gentle arch across the Arakawa River in Adachi, carrying the Shuto Expressway C2 Central Circular Route between Kohoku Junction and Itabashi Junction. Its name — Goshikizakura, written with characters for “five colours” and “cherry blossoms” — comes from an old Tokyo memory. The riverbanks here were once lined with a famous planting of variously coloured cherry trees known as Goshikizakura, drawing blossom-viewers from across the capital during the Meiji and Taishō eras. The landscape has long since changed, but the name of the old viewing spot lives on in the bridge.

The structure opened in December 2002 with a total span of 146.2 metres and a maximum span of 142.2 metres. Both figures confirm engineering scale, but it is the form of the bridge rather than its length alone that earned it a place in the record books.

The World’s First of Its Kind

Goshikizakura Bridge is a double-deck Nielsen-Lohse arch bridge: two lanes of expressway — the inner loop bound for Itabashi above, the outer loop bound for Kohoku below — stacked within a single arch structure. When the bridge opened in 2002, no bridge anywhere in the world had combined the double-deck arrangement with the Nielsen-Lohse form, making Goshikizakura a genuine first.

In a Nielsen-Lohse bridge, multiple diagonal hangers spread the load from the arch across the deck, allowing slimmer girders and longer spans than a conventional arch would permit. Stacking two traffic lanes vertically within this system kept the overall height of the structure to approximately 53 metres above the river — a compact solution for crossing the wide Arakawa channel while fitting within Tokyo’s urban scale. The project received the Japan Society of Civil Engineers’ Tanaka Award in 2002 in recognition of its structural innovation.

After dark, 108 white LED lights trace the arch, casting its silhouette onto the water below. The illumination is aimed at drivers passing overhead, but the reflection on the Arakawa is equally visible from the riverbank.

Summary

Goshikizakura Bridge is a 146.2-metre double-deck Nielsen-Lohse arch bridge that opened in December 2002 on the C2 Central Circular Route over the Arakawa River in Adachi. Named after the famed cherry-blossom banks that once drew crowds to this stretch of river, it holds the distinction of being the world’s first bridge of its structural type and won the JSCE Tanaka Award in 2002. Standing on the Arakawa riverbank and looking up at the twin decks converging into the arch is one of those off-the-beaten-track ways to appreciate Tokyo’s infrastructure at close range.

Related: Central Circular Route (C2) / Ohashi Junction

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