Pictures of the new Hibiya Line "Toranomon Hills" station

[railsquid]

Article in Japanese with a bunch of pictures of Tokyo's latest station with a katakana-infested name:

 

https://trafficnews.jp/post/89115

 

Located close to the new-ish Toranomon Hills complex.

[Socimi]

https://i.ibb.co/7WPXRBt/Roppongi-Katakana-mae-Station.png

 

The new Toranomon Hills station would be located 800m from Kamiyacho and 500m from Kasumigaseki.

At the moment, the distance between the two is 1300m, wich, for a line passing under a dense center is a bit longer than usual (the normal distance between urban subway stations is around 1Km, with a minimium of 300m), wich makes sense for a new station to be put in the middle, except that with the current project, they're building it directly in front of the Toranomon Hills complex, missing an opportunity to create a direct transfer to the Ginza Line at Toranomon station.

Yes, the two lines would be connected; but by a 7-minute walk, wich is way too much, even for an underground passageway.

 

Given that the station's purpose will be almost exclusively to serve the complex it's not surprising to see it will be named that way, altough i would have choosed a more Japanese "Nishi-Shimbashi" (West Shimbashi) or "Atago-Jingu-Mae" ("Near the Atago Temple") or "Sakurada-dori" (the street under it will be built), rather than "Toranomon Hills", as (given that in Japanese there is no " L "  sound and words mostly end with a wowel) will end up sounding like "Toranomon Hirrusu".

 

Altough the thing that worries me most in this all "new station" deal is neither the name or the placement: it's the planned BRT.

 

"The station will be located on the west side of the Toranomon Hills commercial and residential complex which opened in June 2014, and will provide connections with a new bus and bus rapid transit terminal also planned ahead of the 2020 Olympics." (source)

 

Bus Rapid Transit? When? Where? WHY!?

Why would you build what is possibly the least efficient (in terms of cost compared to the occupied space and capacity) and least suitable pubblic transport system for a densely populated and built metropolis like Tokyo!

 

[Socimi]

As of the 6th of June, Toranomon-katakana-mae station is now open for business. 

[railsquid]

On 8/31/2019 at 4:56 AM, Socimi said:

Altough the thing that worries me most in this all "new station" deal is neither the name or the placement: it's the planned BRT.

 

"The station will be located on the west side of the Toranomon Hills commercial and residential complex which opened in June 2014, and will provide connections with a new bus and bus rapid transit terminal also planned ahead of the 2020 Olympics." (source)

 

Bus Rapid Transit? When? Where? WHY!?

Why would you build what is possibly the least efficient (in terms of cost compared to the occupied space and capacity) and least suitable pubblic transport system for a densely populated and built metropolis like Tokyo!

 

Amazingly I'd never heard of this until I saw that post, anyway going by the official website etc. it seems more of a bus priority system than a classic BRT. Was supposed to have provisionally opened on May 24th but that has been postponed for the current usual reason.

 

As for the rationale behind this, currently connections between the "traditional" centre of Tokyo (Ginza and surrounding areas) and the Tsukijima/Harumi/Odaiba area are actually not all that good - basically the options are Toei bus (direct but potentially slow), the Yurikamome (which terminates at Shinbashi but takes a very circuitous route which first takes you most of the way down towards Shinagawa Station before embarking on a leisurely winding cruise over the Rainbow Bridge and all around the back of the Odaiba area), or the Rinkai Line, which goes in completely the wrong direction.

 

Now, the Toranomon Hills complex sits upon a newly constructed, nice wide road carved out from some expensive real estate which provides a direct route to the Tsukijima/Harumi area, passing through the site of the old Tsukuji market (which is why they were so keen to close it ASAP), and looks quite suitable for setting up some sort of reasonably fast bus route providing some connections otherwise not available, particularly between various Olypmics-related sites.

 

There were some ideas about building a tram connection (see e.g. here) but nothing seems to have come of those.

[RossDensha]

Despite the english name, the english announcements say 'hirizu'. 

(0:38)

[RossDensha]

Is this the BRT?

Very fancy display.

Interesting that it's a locally built articulated bus rather than the imported Volgren examples used by Nishitetsu and Nara Kotsu.

[JR 500系]

Very nice! You know what i'm going to say next.... Tomytec please?  😛

[maihama eki]

Shimbashi Station is only a 10-15 minute walk from Toranomon Hills.

 

There is a Hyatt in the Toranomon Hills building that I've stayed in a few times.  It was almost affordable (by Tokyo standards) when it first opened and was unknown, much less so now.  I always walked to Shimbashi Station from there.

[Socimi]

6 hours ago, RossDensha said:

Is this the BRT?

Very fancy display.

Interesting that it's a locally built articulated bus rather than the imported Volgren examples used by Nishitetsu and Nara Kotsu.

 

Another interesting thing is that they're marked "Keisei Bus Co." (see for example at 1:26). Is Keisei going to operate the line or are these for another system?

Edited August 3, 2020 by Socimi

[railsquid]

5 hours ago, Socimi said:

 

Another interesting thing is that they're marked "Keisei Bus Co." (see for example at 1:26). Is Keisei going to operate the line or are these for another system?

 

The operation contract was given by Tokyo to a subsidiary of the Keisei Group, 東京BRT株式会社 (Tokyo BRT KK). See Wikipedia page: https://ja.wikipedia.org/wiki/東京BRT