Central Circular Route
The Central Circular Route, signed as Route C2, is one of the routes of the Shuto Expressway system serving the central part of the Greater Tokyo Area. The route is a circumferential highway running through the outer wards of Tokyo. The route is the middle of four ring expressways planned for the city; the other three being the C1 Inner Circular Route, the C3 Tokyo Gaikan Expressway, and the C4 Ken-Ō Expressway.
Route description
The Central Circular Route has a total length of.It is a ring that lies approximately from the center of the city and goes through the wards of Edogawa, Katsushika, Adachi, Kita, Itabashi, Toshima, Shinjuku, Nakano, Shibuya, Meguro, and Shinagawa.
The eastern half is an elevated structure and the western half is an underground one. The Yamate Tunnel is a deep tunnel constructed beneath Yamate Street, the first section over in length, was opened to traffic on 22 December 2007. From 2010, the tunnel extended the Central Circular Route south from near Ikebukuro to Ohashi Junction connecting with Route 3. The last through Meguro and Shinagawa was opened to traffic on 7 March 2015. When this last section of the tunnel opened the Yamate Tunnel formed Japan's longest, and the world's second longest road tunnel. During the tunnel's first week of operations, traffic volume on the Inner Circular Route was reduced by seven percent from the previous week, and congestion on expressways inside the Central Circular Route was approximately halved from the previous week.
The C2 begins and ends at the Bayshore Route, which serves to close the southeastern part of the loop.