Tokyo Night Drive – Aqua-Line, Rainbow Bridge and Tokyo Tower [JAPAN] Slow TV 東京 夜 ドライブ

#night #drive #tokyo

Thank you to everyone for your kind encouragement over the past three weeks. We are now delivering 4K videos. We hope you enjoy them.

In this episode, we drove from the Boso Peninsula (Chiba Pref.) side on the Tokyo Bay Aqua-Line towards Tokyo.

27:24 You can see Tokyo Tower on the left. The tower looks really nice at night.

27:30 The Rainbow Bridge appears on the left.

29:00 Going over the Rainbow Bridge. Enjoy the nice collaboration of the beautiful bridge and Tokyo Tower.

:::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::

Our videos are pretty quiet as we do not talk at all when we film.
Sit back, relax and enjoy the scenery.

Please like, comment, and share!

We upload new videos a few times a week.
Don’t forget to subscribe to our channel so that you don’t miss the new episodes.
Youtube:

We are also on Twitter and Instagram.
Twitter:
Instagram:

:::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::

About the Aqua-Line
The Tokyo Bay Aqua-Line (東京湾アクアライン, Tōkyō-wan Akua-rain), also known as the Trans-Tokyo Bay Expressway, is an expressway that’s mainly made up of a bridge–tunnel combination across Tokyo Bay in Japan. It connects the city of Kawasaki in Kanagawa Prefecture with the city of Kisarazu in Chiba Prefecture, and forms part of National Route 409. With an overall length of 23.7 km, it includes a 4.4 km bridge and 9.6 km tunnel underneath the bay—the fourth-longest underwater tunnel in the world.

At the bridge-tunnel crossover point, there is an artificial island called Umihotaru (海ほたる, Umi-hotaru, literally meaning “sea firefly” or Vargula hilgendorfii) with a rest area consisting of restaurants, shops and amusement facilities. Air is supplied to the tunnel by a distinctive tower in the middle of the tunnel, called the Kaze no Tō (風の塔, “the tower of wind”), which uses the bay’s almost-constant winds as a power source.

The road opened on December 18, 1997, after 23 years of planning and 9 years of construction at a cost of 1.44 trillion yen (US$11.2 billion at the time of opening).

The Tokyo Bay Aqua-Line reduced the drive between Chiba and Kanagawa, two important industrial regions, from 90 to 15 minutes, and also contributed to cutting the travel time to the sea leisure area in the southern part of the Bōsō Peninsula from Tokyo and Kanagawa. Before the tunnel opened, one had to drive around about 100 km along the shores of Tokyo Bay and pass through downtown Tokyo.

One goal expressed during the planning of the Aqua-Line was to reduce the traffic through downtown Tokyo, but as the highway toll is quite high, the reduction in Tokyo traffic has not been as great as expected.

Many highway bus services now use the Tokyo Bay Aqua-Line, including lines from Tokyo Station, Yokohama Station, Kawasaki Station, Shinagawa Station, Shibuya Station, Shinjuku Station and Haneda Airport to Kisarazu, Kimitsu, Nagaura station, Ichihara, Mobara, Tōgane, Kamogawa, Katsuura and Tateyama.

About the Rainbow Bridge
The Rainbow Bridge (レインボーブリッジ, Reinbō Burijji) is a suspension bridge crossing northern Tokyo Bay between Shibaura Pier and the Odaiba waterfront development in Minato, Tokyo, Japan.

It was built by Kawasaki Heavy Industries,with construction starting in 1987 and completed in 1993. The bridge is 798 metres (2,618 ft) long with a main span of 580 metres (1,903 ft). Officially called the “Shuto Expressway No. 11 Daiba Route – Port of Tokyo Connector Bridge,” the name “‘Rainbow Bridge” was decided by the public.

The towers supporting the bridge are white in color, designed to harmonize with the skyline of central Tokyo seen from Odaiba. There are lamps placed on the wires supporting the bridge, which are illuminated into three different colors, red, white and green every night using solar energy obtained during the day.

The bridge can be accessed by foot from Tamachi Station (JR East) or Shibaura-futō Station (Yurikamome) on the mainland side.

Route Maps & Train Info

Tokyo Metro Subway Map

Travel Brochures