Tokyo, so sugoi! This tokyo expressway park conversion is turning the city’s decommissioned elevated expressway into a 2-km ‘sky park.’ A city that values walkers over cars.
The KK Line carried 25,000 cars daily for 60+ years since 1964. Decommissioned April 2025, the Shimbashi–Kyobashi stretch becomes the Tokyo Sky Corridor, a green walkway 8.5 m high linking Shimbashi, Tokyo Station, Ginza.
Cars moved underground into the twin-tunnel Shin-Kyobashi Connecting Road. Years of engineering made 25,000 cars/day vanish from the sky. The expressway once passed over 14 2-storey buildings with 380 tenants — restaurants, bars, malls, ramen, small izakayas under concrete for half a century. With the cars gone, the whole stretch belongs to walkers.
Tokyo’s 3 principles: car-centric → people-centric, people with nature, keeping the area’s beauty. Tree-shaded walkway, skyscraper-view seating, old buildings beneath still open. Gov. Yuriko Koike (Apr 2026): ‘This place sits in the city’s heart — almost a miracle of space, reborn as public space for people to come, stay, walk, and have fun together.’
Construction runs mid-2020s to 2030s–40s, with early openings — GINZA SKY WALK 2024: crowds queued on the old asphalt for wind and high views over Ginza. Roof Park Fes & Walk 2026 opens the space before the permanent park.
Once a river, then a car road — now green again. The world is watching: green space in a business district like Ginza is scarce. New York turned an abandoned rail line into the High Line, millions visit yearly. But the tokyo expressway park conversion differs: Tokyo moved live traffic and dug a tunnel instead. Public space is for people, not machines.
I want to see Thailand 🇹🇭 have the courage to change like this too — our cities would be so much more livable, right?
Sources: Tokyo Metropolitan Government, Jul 2026