Abstract
Toyama City has been promoting compact city management strategy (a city having a dense center and a series of dense hubs interconnected by strong public transport) in anticipation of full-scale population decline and the progress of a super ageing society. Toyama has been promoting efforts to vitalize public transportation, especially with the formation of LRT networks which form a total length of 15 km centering on Toyama Station. This network includes “Portram” as Japan’s first full scale LRT system to revitalize the JR Toyama Port Line, and “Centram” as Toyama City Loopline to reactivate the central downtown area. The city has seen not only residential relocation along public transport routes but also the upward trends in ridership of public transport. The completion of the north-south connection of the two LRT systems in March 2020 has integrated urban areas that had been divided by Toyama Station and railways since 1908. Since the establishment of the City in 1889, Toyama has undertaken a number of significant urban development projects to build a modern city over the past 130 years. This roughly went through three phases from the perspective of resilience: 1. Flood Control of the Jinzu River and the First Tram Service on the Japan Sea Coast (from 1897 to 1938); 2. Post-war Reconstruction including the Construction of City Planning Roads and Restoration of Tram Service (from 1945 to 1955); 3. Compact City Plan and Realization of a Hundred-year Dream of Toyama Citizens by Completion of North-South Connection of Two LRT Systems (from 2004 to 2020). The purpose of this study is to show that the third phase was realized by the development of the first phase and the second phase. Predecessors strengthened the resilience of the city and maintained the transportation infrastructure for the future. We should continue to make use of historical assets to promote city development.
