Conditions of Highway Landscape Conservation in the Entire Old Tokaido

Abstract

Heritage along once flourished historic highways are often lost due road widening projects as most of them are still the shortest routes that connect important places today. This survey focuses on Old Tokaido, one of the five highways that connected Edo Tokyo and cities around Japan, that still serves as a major corridor connecting towns between Tokyo and Kyoto. It explores to what extent the post towns and the road between them are conserved as historic highway landscape and discuss what kind of conditions are necessary for the conservation. The walking survey was conducted for the entire length of Old Tokaido to collect data on the conditions of roads and historical townscapes. The result is shown in the form of matrix categorizing the segments of Old Tokaido according to walkability and development pressure.