Ban-etsu Expressway
Template: Infobox trunk road / maintenance / JP -A
Prefecture:
- Fukushima
- Niigata
The Ban'etsu highway (Japanese磐 越 自动 车道, Ban'etsu jidōshadō ) is a highway in Japan. The highway is an east -west route across the northern part of the island of Honshū, of Iwaki in Fukushima Prefecture on Kōriyama to Niigata on the west coast. Between Yasuda and Niigata, a short section is single track. The rest of the highway has 2 × 2 lanes. The highway is 213 km long.
Ban'etsu (磐 越) denotes the region of the old province of Iwaki (磐 城 国, and today the eastern part of Fukushima Prefecture) and Echigo (越 后 国, today Niigata Prefecture).
Street Description
The Ban'etsu highway starts at Iwaki, near the east coast, on the Joban Expressway, a north- south highway from Tokyo along the coast to the north. The highway has 2 × 2 lanes and runs to the northwest, through a wooded and hilly landscape. The runs are very far apart. After about 60 kilometers you will reach the city Kōriyama, where it crosses the Tohoku Expressway, the main north - south highway from Tokyo to Aomori in the north. The west of this area is mountainous but the Ban'etsu highway running through even on flat ground. Here comes the town of Aizu Wakamatsu -, the only major town between Koriyama and Niigata. Then follows a mountain range with many middle tunnels of several kilometers in length. From Yasuda a single-track section until converted, shortly before the city of Niigata. The highway then crosses the Nihonkai - Tōhoku Expressway and Hokuriku highway and ends in the city of Niigata.
History
The Ban'etsu highway is relatively new. The first section was opened on 31 October 1990 by Bandai and the Tōhoku Expressway at Kōriyama. In the years 1991 and 1992, followed by other areas in the east of the island. On 28 July 1994, the first section opened in the West, between Yasuda and Niigata, as single-lane highway. On 2 August 1995, the last part of the eastern section between Iwaki and Koriyama was opened. On 1 October 1997, the last part of the highway between Ban'etsu Tsugawa and Nishiaizu was opened.
The Ban'etsu highway was the only highway with overpasses, but initially without 2x2 lanes. Only in 1999, the first 2 × 2 section opened at Bandai. In 2004 the eastern part between Iwaki and Koriyama widened to 2 × 2 lanes. There then followed by other parts of the central section.
Opening the data highway
Traffic
The volume of traffic was in the year 2005 9100 vehicles per day at the eastern end in Iwaki, which rises to a traffic volume of 12,900 vehicles per day in Koriyama. West drive about 6500-8000 vehicles per day in the central part and 8300 vehicles per day at the western end in Niigata.