Tachikawa Station Redevelopment: A Guide to the Future Station Area

The walkway in the air is not finished yet

People walking around Tachikawa Station’s North and South Exits mostly never come down to the ground. That is because pedestrian-only decks, linking JR Tachikawa Station with Tachikawa-Kita and Tachikawa-Minami stations on the Tama Monorail, connect the station and the town at first-floor height, one level above the street. When and how the decks grew, I wrote about in this series’ Tachikawa Station article.

The surprise is that, on paper, this deck network is not yet complete.

The city’s “Tachikawa Station Front Sidewalk Elevation Plan” was first drawn up in fiscal 1993 and revised in March 2008. Its statement of purpose says that raising the sidewalks is not only about the convenience of separating people from cars, but about turning the sidewalks around the station from places you merely pass through into places where citizens gather, relax and enjoy themselves. Its four basic ideas are safety, liveliness, symbolism and convenience. The word used for “liveliness”, nigiwai-sei, is not one you meet often in the dictionary, but you can tell exactly what it means.

From fiscal 2018 to 2019, the city re-examined the decks in the plan that had not been built as of the end of fiscal 2017, asking whether they were really needed and whether they could be built. On a weekday and a holiday in September 2018, for 16 hours each, from 6 a.m. to 9 p.m., it counted pedestrians at 11 points in the area. The result: the need for every one of the unbuilt sub-main decks, and for the side decks leading to them, was confirmed.

There was a problem underground, though. Under the planned decks run many buried services, the sewer mains first among them, and some places were found where they would have to be moved before piers could be put up, and others where moving them would be difficult. The rough construction cost varies by deck from about 460 million yen to about 3.33 billion yen. In the assessment, the sub-main decks at the Akebonobashi and Akebono-guchi intersections ranked highest.

Try to build a path in the sky, and you find the ground beneath is crowded. That is very Tachikawa, you might say. When this town makes plans looking up at the sky, it usually runs into something under its feet. Even so, the review concluded that the decks are “needed”. The story of the walkway in the air is still only halfway through.

The Chuo Line’s double-decker Green Cars, and an elevated Nambu Line

Change at Tachikawa Station is happening not only above the town but on the tracks too.

According to the online encyclopaedia Wikipedia, from 13 October 2024 the Chuo Line Rapid began running 12-car trains that include two double-decker Green Cars, and until 14 March 2025, as a “trial period”, you could ride them without paying any extra. (A Green Car is JR’s first-class carriage, with more comfortable seats for an extra fare.) Green Car service started on 15 March 2025, between Tokyo Station and Otsuki Station, and between Tachikawa and Ome stations on the Ome Line. The encyclopaedia also says this made it the first line in the Kanto region, and the first JR line, to have both Green Cars and women-only cars.

The funniest thing in the encyclopaedia’s account is the way the introduction slipped. The original plan was fiscal 2020, but it was postponed when it turned out that rebuilding stations to lengthen the platforms and so on would take longer than expected. The company’s president at the time reportedly said it “won’t be as much as five years late”. In the end, service began in March 2025. Almost exactly five years after the planned fiscal year. His words were kept, just barely.

Tachikawa Station is the fork in this Green Car network. Beyond Tachikawa, trains with Green Cars split between those heading west along the Chuo Line towards Otsuki and those heading up the Ome Line towards Ome. You can now ride from Shinjuku to Tachikawa sitting in a double-decker carriage. To the measure of how easy it is to get here from central Tokyo, a new ruler has been added: how comfortable the seat is.

Look south, and there are plans for change on the Nambu Line as well. In October 2025, the Tokyo Metropolitan Government, Kunitachi City, Tachikawa City and JR East held briefings on the draft town plan for grade separation of the Nambu Line between Yaho and Tachikawa stations. According to Tokyo’s pamphlet, the track will be raised onto a viaduct over a section of about 3.7 km between Yaho and Tachikawa, removing or closing 19 level crossings. The aims are to end traffic jams at level crossings, make both roads and railway safer, and end the way the railway cuts communities in two. Tachikawa City has also shown a plan to build a transport plaza of about 4,000 square metres at Nishi-Kunitachi Station to go with it. No completion date has been shown yet.

The Nambu Line, which brings you from Kawasaki to Tachikawa without changing trains, is the road to Tachikawa for people from Kanagawa. On the last stretch of that road, the level crossings are set to disappear.

There is talk further ahead, too. Report No. 198 of the national Council for Transport Policy, compiled in 2016, contains an item headed “Extension of the Keiyo Line towards the Chuo Line, and quadruple-tracking of the Chuo Line (Tokyo–Mitaka–Tachikawa)”. Easing crowding on the Chuo Line and improving access between western Tokyo and the centre are given as its significance, while for the quadruple-tracking it says that sufficient consideration “is expected” of a project plan, including how the project would be structured. Tachikawa’s urban planning master plan also names quadruple-tracking of the JR Chuo Line and extension of the Tama Toshi Monorail as pillars of securing a public transport network. For now, this is at the concept stage.

On the north-south axis, the extension of the Tama Toshi Monorail from Kamikitadai to Hakonegasaki has become a project, with an opening targeted for the mid-2030s. That story I leave to another article in this series.

Who decides? A symposium and “a new system”

Who decides the future of the station front? The city looks for the answer in co-creation between the public and private sectors.

On the evening of 23 October 2025, the Tachikawa Station Area Town-Building Symposium was held in the hall of the Tachikawa City Women’s Centre. Its organisers were the City of Tachikawa, the Tachikawa Station North Exit Front District Town-Building Council, the Tachikawa South Exit Town-Building Council, and the Tachikawa Chamber of Commerce and Industry. Its subtitle: “To the next stage that opens the future: public-private co-created town-building, kick-off now”. There was a keynote lecture by an urban engineering scholar and a panel discussion with people running area management, the head of the Chamber of Commerce and the mayor among others, and 155 people took part.

There is one more move, unglamorous but important. The city has begun considering “a new system for town-building”. According to the city’s explanation, Tachikawa drew up guidelines for residential development in 1976, and since 1993 has guided development with the “Tachikawa City Guidelines for Residential and Other Development and Town-Building”. Meanwhile, in the Tama area, many local governments have passed so-called “town-building ordinances”, turning into law the means to learn about large developments early and to let residents have their say. Tachikawa, the city itself lists as an issue, has no system for learning early about land sales or changes of land use for large developments and giving advice, no system for informing local residents, and no system for reflecting citizens’ opinions. The town at the centre of Tama is trying to catch up with its neighbours when it comes to the rules of town-building. A slightly surprising, slightly honest confession.

The city’s highest-level plan, the Fifth Long-Term Comprehensive Plan (April 2025), set out its picture of the town in ten years’ time as Miryoku sakihokori, tsudoi hanayagu machi Tachikawa: shinpu o fukikomi, bifu o mamoru, roughly “Tachikawa, a town in full bloom with charm, where people gather and things come alive: breathing in new winds, keeping good old ways”. The urban planning master plan revised in March 2026 adopts this as Tachikawa’s vision of its future as it stands, and for the Tachikawa Station area writes that it will create a hub where people from Japan and abroad are active and meet one another, and where innovation keeps being born. Breathing in new winds, keeping good old ways. A district plan that bars flats, and new rules for development: they look like an attempt to do both at once.

Then, now and next

Back then, the North Exit’s station plaza was at ground level, and buses circled around it. Along both sides of the South Exit’s street, low roofs stood in rows. Tokyo held up a plan called “the city centre of Tama”, and in front of the wide land handed back from the base, the town dreamed big.

Now, people walk at first-floor height and step from the station-front deck straight onto the monorail. Double-decker Green Cars pull out of the station for Ome and Otsuki. The development of the former base land has come to a pause, and a different kind of demand, for housing, is pressing in on the land around the station.

Next, a line barring housing is planned for one corner of the station front, the continuation of the walkway in the air not yet built is under study, and the Nambu Line’s level crossings are planned to vanish. And the city, together with the community, begins to write its picture of the station area’s future. If the Showa blueprint was “the city centre of Tama”, what name will the Reiwa blueprint carry? (Reiwa is Japan’s current era, which began in 2019.) Nobody knows that yet.

Praising the future is not enough: the open questions

For fairness, the points of debate need writing down too.

A district plan that bars housing protects the hub, but narrows the choices of people who want to live by the station and of landowners deciding what to do with their land. That is precisely why the draft has been put on display, with a period for submitting written opinions. It will only be decided after that procedure.

The continuation of the walkway in the air faces money and underground problems. Hundreds of millions to billions of yen per deck, and places where moving buried services is difficult. For the decks that scored low, the city’s review states plainly that the chances of building them are slim.

No completion date has been shown for raising the Nambu Line. Quadruple-tracking of the Chuo Line has stopped at the stage where the council’s report “expects” sufficient study of a project plan. The Green Cars trade the comfort of a seat for an extra fare.

And the city’s future vision itself has yet to be written. How will the sense of crisis and the hopes turn into concrete measures? The first working group, on 28 October 2026, will be the first step.

For visitors from overseas: a station between Mount Fuji and Haneda

The word “gateway” the city wrote makes good sense when you look through the eyes of a traveller from abroad. Head further west on the Chuo Line and you reach Mount Takao and the Otsuki direction; take the Ome Line and you head for Okutama. On a journey from central Tokyo towards Mount Fuji and the mountains, Tachikawa is in just the right place to get off while you change trains.

From Haneda Airport there is an airport bus with no changes. The Haneda Airport Line, run by Tachikawa Bus and Keikyu Bus, links Akishima Station, Tachikawa Station, Kunitachi Station and Yaho Station with Haneda Airport, and when you head from Tachikawa to the airport no reservation is needed. Please check fares and timetables on Tachikawa Bus’s official site.

Inside the station’s ticket gates, on the third floor of ecute Tachikawa, is the Tama branch of the Tokyo Tourist Information Center. According to GO TOKYO, Tokyo’s official tourism site, of the six tourist information centres run by the Tokyo government, this is the only one outside the 23 wards, and it offers free Wi-Fi and information on sightseeing routes.

What may surprise visitors from overseas is probably how much room there is up on the first floor of the station front. Walk out of the station and, without ever coming down to the ground, you can reach a department store, the monorail and a district of public art. And if you learn that the plan for that path in the air is still “halfway through”, you may be more surprised still.

Quiz answer

The answer is (C), 48 years. According to the City of Tachikawa, the Tachikawa Station South Exit Land Readjustment Project was approved on 17 February 1966, and the public notice of the new plots came on 1 October 2014. The area was about 28.2 hectares. Counting from 1964, when the town plan was decided, it comes to exactly 50 years.

Before you go

• One possible route: from the North Exit of JR Tachikawa Station, step out onto the deck and walk the blocks of Faret Tachikawa (3 minutes from the North Exit, according to Faret Tachikawa Art’s official guide). This is the roughly 6.7 hectares covered by the draft district plan. Take in Sun Sun Road, head back to the station, and go through the free north-south passage to the South Exit. Walk the South Exit roads and decks born of the readjustment project, and you will have traced half a century of the station front. Just the station and its surroundings take, by my reckoning, about one to two hours.
• City of Tachikawa, “Future Vision for the Tachikawa Station Area (provisional name)” (Japanese): https://www.city.tachikawa.lg.jp/shisei/machizukuri/1026027/index.html
• City of Tachikawa, display of the draft Faret Tachikawa Related Area District Plan and written opinions (Japanese): https://www.city.tachikawa.lg.jp/shisei/machizukuri/1006752/1006902/1028328.html
• City of Tachikawa, “Tachikawa Station Front Sidewalk Elevation Plan” (Japanese): https://www.city.tachikawa.lg.jp/shisei/machizukuri/1006752/1006896/1006911.html
• Getting there: from central Tokyo, take the JR Chuo Line from Shinjuku to Tachikawa Station without changing trains (Green Cars run too). From Kanagawa, the JR Nambu Line links Kawasaki Station and Tachikawa Station with no change. From the Yokohama side, you can also take the Yokohama Line to Hachioji and change to the Chuo Line. From Haneda Airport, there is an airport bus (Tachikawa Bus Haneda Airport Line: https://www.tachikawabus.co.jp/highway/haneda/ ). Check timetables, journey times and fares on each operator’s official site.
• Tokyo Tourist Information Center Tama (ecute Tachikawa 3F): https://www.gotokyo.org/jp/plan/tourist-info-center/index.html
• Combine with: this series has an article each on Faret Tachikawa’s public art (Faret Tachikawa), the 130-year story of the station (Tachikawa Station), a century of Tachikawa as a shopping town, and the Tama Monorail extension.
• General tips: carry an IC card such as Suica or PASMO for trains, buses and the monorail, and check opening days on the official sites before you go.

After walking the station front of the future

Walk north and south across the first floor of the station front with maps and documents in your head, and your legs tighten more than you expect. Perhaps from spending so much time looking up, your neck and shoulders stiffen too.

A one-minute walk from the North Exit of JR Tachikawa Station, on the third floor of the Etoile Building at 2-14-10 Akebonocho, Tachikawa, Tokyo, is On the Shore Tachikawa (オンザショア立川店). It is a hot yoga studio with heated lava-stone floors, and it also offers room-temperature yoga, Pilates, women-only kickboxercise, boxercise, HIIT and personal training, with more than 25 kinds of yoga lessons.

It is open every day from 8:00 to 23:30. Whether you come after the morning commuter wave has ebbed or arrive at night in a Green Car, there is time to drop in.

For first-timers there is a trial yoga lesson for ¥1,980 including tax, with two bath towels, one face towel and mat rental included, so you can come empty-handed.

Pregnant guests cannot join lava-stone hot yoga, but room-temperature maternity yoga is available. Many of our yoga instructors speak English, and the studio’s owner, Naomi Fujita, often helps guests from the US bases in English herself. She holds Eiken Grade 1 and a perfect TOEIC score, once worked as a translator and overseas interpreter at Nomura Securities, and lived in Alaska for three years. If you don’t speak Japanese, just mention it when you book.

• On the Shore: https://ontheshore.jp/
• Book a trial lesson: https://site.locaop.jp/C0aVK?_src=hp

Some weekend, take the Chuo Line from Shinjuku and get off at Tachikawa. Stand on the first floor of the station front, and both the town built over half a century and the town still to be written are there to see, under the same sky.

Cover photo: Tachikawa Station’s North Exit seen from the pedestrian deck, where people walk one level above the street (Photo: DiKnK8713 / CC BY-SA 4.0 / Wikimedia Commons)

Information as of October 2026.

More Tachikawa Walks

• Tachikawa Air Raids: WWII History and a Memorial Walk Guide
• Tachikawa Autumn Leaves Guide: Ginkgo, Zelkova and Where to Walk
• Tachikawa Base Town History: Cola Bottles, Yuming, the Laundry Gate
• Tachikawa Air Base History Walk: The Sunagawa Struggle and After
• Tachikawa Sento Guide: Public Baths, Their History and Bath Etiquette
• Tachikawa Disaster Base and Life Safety Learning Center: A Guide
• Tachikawa Bridges Walk: ‘Nameless Bridge’ to a Double-Deck Crossing
• Tachikawa Cinema City Guide: Tokyo’s First Multiplex and Its Big Sound
• Tachikawa Museums Guide: Art, 2,558 Instruments and Things to Do
• Tachikawa Cycling Guide: Showa Kinen Park’s 14 km and the Tama River
• Tachikawa Festivals Guide: Bon Dances, Flamenco, Nebuta and Yokai
• Tachikawa History Walk: Famous People, from Seiji Ozawa to a Comet
• Tachikawa History Walk: Famous People Who Passed Through the Town
• Tachikawa Public Art Walk: A Guide to the 109 Works of Faret Tachikawa
• Tachikawa Farms Guide: Farm Stands, Harvest Days and Tokyo’s Fields
• Tachikawa History: Japan’s Firsts, from Electric Cars to Sazae-san
• Tachikawa Folktales and Legends: A History Walk Through Old Stories
• Tachikawa Walk: Fusai-ji Temple’s National Treasure and Suwa Shrine
• Tachikawa Business Guide: Where West Tokyo Works and Starts Up
• Tachikawa Culture Guide: Ballet, Ice, Anime and Art Near the Station
• Tachikawa’s Green Future: Zero Carbon, Farmland and Springs Guide
• Tachikawa for Foreign Visitors: Haneda Bus, Things to Do, Future
• Tachikawa Population and Family Life: A Guide to the Town’s Future
• Tama Monorail Extension: When It Opens and Tachikawa’s Future Guide
• Tachikawa and Tokyo’s Next Big Earthquake: Disaster Base Guide
• Showa Kinen Park Guide: The Future of Tachikawa’s Unfinished Park
• Tachikawa’s Next Decade: Tachihi, GREEN SPRINGS and a New Hotel Guide
• Tachikawa GREEN SPRINGS Guide: Goats, a Rooftop River, Things to Do
• Tachikawa Travel Guide: Things to Do, Walks and History West of Tokyo
• Tachikawa Walk: Slopes, River Terraces and a Flat City’s Hidden Tilt
• Tachikawa History Walk: How a Mulberry Village Became Tama’s Hub
• Tachikawa Airfield History: The 2:12 a.m. Flight to London, 1937
• Tachikawa Was Once in Kanagawa: A History Walk to the 1893 Transfer
• Tachikawa Keirin Velodrome: History, Guide and the Grand Prix’s Home
• Tachikawa Childhood History: Candy Shops, a Base Christmas, Showa Kids
• Tachikawa Aviation Shrine History: The First ‘Tokyo Airfield’ Walk
• Showa Kinen Park Guide: Komorebi Village, Japanese Garden and Bonsai
• Tachikawa Libraries Guide: Raccoon Dogs, Lucky Cats, Local History
• Tachikawa Live Music Guide: Basement Venues and Where TM Meant Tama
• Tachikawa Manga Park Guide: 40,000 Manga in a Former City Hall
• Tachikawa Fireworks Festival Guide: History, Tips and Things to Do
• Akishima Day Trip from Tachikawa: Whale Fossil, Wisteria and History
• Fussa Day Trip from Tachikawa: Yokota Air Base History, Route 16 Walk
• Fussa Sake Brewery Walk: Day Trip from Tachikawa, Water and History
• Hachioji Castle Ruins from Tachikawa: History Walk and Silk Town Guide
• Mount Takao Day Trip from Tachikawa: Hiking Guide, History and Forest
• Hino Day Trip from Tachikawa: Shinsengumi History Walk and Guide
• Kokubunji Walk from Tachikawa: Otaka-no-Michi Springs and History
• Kunitachi Walk from Tachikawa: Daigaku-dori, History and Yaho Tenmangu
• Mount Mitake Day Trip from Tachikawa: Wolf Shrine, Valley Walk Guide
• Ome Day Trip from Tachikawa: Showa Retro Walk, Things to Do, History
• Tachikawa Walk: Nekawa Green Path to the Tama River, a Riverside Guide
• Tachikawa Cat-Return Shrine Guide: History, Ema and Suitengu
• Tachikawa Night Views and Mount Fuji at Dawn: A Walking Guide
• Tachikawa at Night: Bar Alleys, Black Markets and Cinema History Walk
• Tachikawa Ramen and Udon Guide: Ramen Square and Noodle History
• Tachikawa vs. Central Tokyo: Why the West Side Wins on Space and Sky
• Tachikawa Old Villages Walk: History Guide, Shibasaki to Nishisuna
• Tachikawa Oni Park Guide: A Red Demon Slide and Trains for Kids
• Tachikawa Parks Guide: Things to Do Beyond Showa Kinen Park, a Walk
• Tachikawa Place Names: A History Walk Through Its Town-Name Origins
• Tachikawa Antarctic and Arctic Science Museum: Free Guide and History
• Tachikawa on a Rainy Day: Indoor Things to Do, a Local Guide
• Tachikawa History Museum Guide: Local History and Folklore, Free
• Tachikawa Cherry Blossoms Guide: Where to See Sakura, and the History
• Tachikawa Schools Walk: History of Night Classes, Bells, Antarctica
• Tachikawa Filming Locations Guide: Anime Pilgrimage and TV Dramas
• Tachikawa Silk History Walk: Japan’s No.1 Mulberry Village, Sunagawa
• Tachikawa Shopping Guide: Why It Has Everything, a History Walk
• Showa Kinen Park, Tachikawa: A Walking Guide to Highlights and History
• Tachikawa and San Bernardino: The History of Tokyo’s First Sister City
• Tachikawa Souvenirs Guide: What to Buy, from Tokyo Sake to Paper
• Tachikawa Sports Guide: Things to Do for Fans, Runners and Walkers
• Tachikawa Station Guide: The History Walk of Tama’s Busiest Station
• Tachikawa in Summer: Things to Do, Water Play and Heat Tips Guide
• Tachikawa Sun Sun Road Walk: History, Festival and Winter Lights
• Tachikawa Tachihi History Walk: Aircraft, a Beach and Things to Do
• Tachikawa History: The Samurai Clan Behind the City’s Name, a Walk
• Tama Monorail from Tachikawa: A Guide to Views, Mt. Fuji and History
• Tachikawa Tama River History Walk: Floods, Ferries and Bridges
• Tachikawa Walk: Tamagawa Aqueduct and Sunagawa History Guide
• Tachikawa Udo Guide: History of Tokyo’s Underground White Vegetable
• Tachikawa Trains Guide: Railway History and Where to Watch Trains
• Tachikawa Water History: Where the Tap Water Comes From, and Wells
• Tachikawa History: Why Tokyo’s First IKEA and Cinema Complex Came Here
• Tachikawa Wildlife Guide: Birdwatching, Fireflies and Tanuki Walks
• Tachikawa Yagawa Green Space Walk: Springs, Hake Cliffs and History
• Tachikawa from Yokota Air Base: A Weekend Guide and Things to Do

All Tachikawa Walks (English)