NEXCO East Japan’s Saitama Construction Office and the Ministry of Land, Infrastructure, Transport and Tourism’s Kanto Regional Development Bureau, North Tokyo National Highway Office, announced that they will begin operating a section of the Metropolitan Central Link Expressway (Ken-O Expressway, C4) as a four-lane highway at 6:00 a.m. on July 24.
The 6.9-kilometer stretch between Goka Interchange and Sakai-Koga Interchange will be expanded to four lanes. In conjunction with this, the speed limit between Kuki-Shiraoka Junction and Sakai-Koga Interchange will be raised to 100 km/h.
Work to expand the Ken-O Expressway to four lanes is underway in various locations, and on February 27, a 4.3-kilometer section between the Tsukuba Chuo Interchange and the Tsukuba Junction was the first to be expanded to four lanes. On this section, average daily traffic volume increased by approximately 8 percent—from about 24,600 vehicles to about 26,600 vehicles—following the expansion to four lanes. Meanwhile, the total number of accidents during the approximately two-and-a-half-month data collection period decreased by about 80 percent, from five to one. Furthermore, concrete improvements were observed, such as the number of road closures due to construction or accidents dropping from 4 to 0, as lane restrictions made it possible to manage traffic more effectively.
The two parties have stated that they will continue to proceed with construction along the entire project section—from the Kuki-Shiraoka JCT to the Daiei JCT, spanning the three prefectures of Saitama, Ibaraki, and Chiba (total length: 92.2 km)—with the aim of safely and promptly commencing four-lane operations.
© Source travel watch