Tachikawa Tama River History Walk: Floods, Ferries and Bridges

The Hino Bridge of 1926, and the years when flood works stopped there

On 25 August 1926, the Hino Bridge was built across the Tama, and the Hino and Manganji ferries were abolished. That is the same one-line entry from the timeline. I wrote about the history of the steel girder bridge, and its current replacement, in the episode on the Nekawa stream and the Tama River, so I will not repeat it here.

The Hino Bridge’s name later appears in the history of flood control in another way.

According to the river office’s timeline, full-scale improvement of the Tama River began in 1918 under the direct control of the Home Ministry, starting with the stretch from the river mouth to Futako Bridge. Then in 1932, as a Home Ministry project, work began on widening the old levees and building revetments between Futako Bridge and the Hino Bridge, and on the Asa River. After the interruption of the war, the upstream improvement works between Futako Bridge and the Hino Bridge resumed in 1946.

The improvement section ended at the Hino Bridge. The Hino Bridge lands on the Tachikawa bank at Nishiki-cho. And the Tachikawa riverside continues upstream from the Hino Bridge towards Shibasaki-cho.

The timeline records that the section managed directly by the national government was extended further upstream in April 1967, when it came to run from the river mouth to Mannen Bridge in Ome. The year before, in March 1966, the Tama was designated a Class A river system.

And in March 1988, both banks of the Tama from the Hino Bridge down to the river mouth were designated for “high-standard levees,” the so-called super levees. Here too, the dividing line was the Hino Bridge. On the flood-control map of the Tama River, the Hino Bridge long served as the marker for “this far.”

A detour quiz for travellers

Which was the very first bridge across the Tama River between Tachikawa and Hino? (A) The Hino Bridge for road traffic (B) The Chuo Line railway bridge (C) The Tachihi Bridge, which carries the Tama Monorail. Think about it as you read the rest of the river story.

The day Tachikawa Station’s North Exit flooded, and the Midorikawa that vanished underground

Tachikawa’s floods did not happen only on the banks of the Tama. Surprisingly, they also happened in front of the station.

Issue 15 of Tachikawa Monogatari traces 100 years of the Tachikawa airfield in photographs. Among them is one captioned “Flooding at the North Exit of Tachikawa Station (1935, Tachikawa City collection).”

According to the article, the opening of the Tachikawa airfield in 1922 increased the population, created jobs and brought great prosperity to Tachikawa. But infrastructure could not keep up with rapid development led by the army and its airfield, and the town found itself with all sorts of urban problems. One was drainage. In heavy or prolonged rain, rainwater overflowing from the airfield and the land around it flowed down south-east towards Tachikawa Station, and the whole station area was often badly flooded.

Tachikawa Station stands on a plateau, a long way from the Tama River. And yet it flooded. Rain falling on the vast airfield came down to the station all at once. On rainy days, the “Sky Capital,” as Tachikawa was known in its aviation heyday, became a water capital too.

To solve the problem, a drainage channel about 4 kilometres long was to be dug from the south-east corner of the airfield to the Tama River. It was surveyed in November 1943, during the Second World War, and construction began the following April. This “Tachikawa drainage channel” first carried water in April 1947, after the war, and in August 1949 it was named the Midorikawa, the “Green River.”

Later, partly at residents’ request, work began in 1960 to cover it over, turning it into an underground culvert. The newsletter says the land on top is now used in all sorts of ways, as car parks, bicycle parks, parks and roads.

Named in 1949, covered over from 1960. The Midorikawa is a river that began to hide underground only eleven years after it got its name. Of all the people cycling through the station area, how many know they are riding over a river? I did not.

Showa typhoons, the Tachihi Bridge, and the Hino Bridge of today

Postwar Tachikawa also faced several trials by water. (Japan counts years by imperial eras: Showa runs from 1926 to 1989, Heisei from 1989 to 2019, and the current era, Reiwa, from 2019.) Tachikawa City’s timeline records for 1966: “Typhoon strikes Tachikawa City (Disaster Relief Act applied).” The national river timeline records that on 28 June of the same year, Typhoon No. 4 flooded 3,400 homes above floor level. That June, the Tama basin suffered a major flood.

Flood control changed the shape of Tachikawa’s streams too. In 1972, to prevent flooding, the Zanbori River was rerouted at Shibasaki-cho to flow straight into the Tama, and the lower Nekawa was filled in to become today’s Nekawa Green Path. I wrote about that in detail in the Nekawa episode.

In September 1974, Typhoon No. 16 broke the main levee on the left bank of the Tama at Komae City for 260 metres, and 19 houses were swept away. The river office’s timeline even records that the resulting lawsuit ended with the residents’ victory in 1992. It happened nearly 20 kilometres downstream of Tachikawa, but it changed the thinking behind flood control on the Tama.

The riverbed then, the riverbed now

From the end of the war until around 1975, the Tama looked very different from today’s riverside parks.

For a start, the riverbed was being dug up. According to Wikipedia, gravel extraction continued after the war for building the base at Tachikawa and for the construction boom of the high-growth years, and the pits left behind lay scattered inside and outside the levees like trenches. When it rained they filled with water, and there were accidents in which children drowned. Gravel extraction was banned across the whole Tama in 1965.

Because the cycling road race of the 1964 Tokyo Olympics was routed along the Koshu Kaido and traffic was growing, the Hino Bridge underwent major works from the mid-1960s into the early 1970s that widened it from 7.3 to 10.5 metres, Wikipedia says. A Taisho-era bridge broadened its shoulders for Olympic athletes to cross.

According to Issue 2 of the city-history newsletter, there was a boat rental on the Nekawa into the early 1950s, with a tea stall at the landing. The scene of boating under the cherry blossoms even appeared on picture postcards.

Then the river opened up as a playground. According to the same national timeline, the “First Tama River Floodplain Opening Plan” began in July 1966, and in 1975 a cycling road was completed along the Tama’s levees. Tachikawa City’s timeline records “Tama River Green Park completed” for 1973.

Back then, the Tama riverbed was a place for digging gravel, and the Midorikawa by the station was an open channel. Now there are baseball grounds and a cycling road on the riverbed, and bicycle parks and gardens on top of the Midorikawa. On the same levee, a scene older people may remember (“Yes, that used to be all dug up”) overlaps with one that makes younger people say, “Here? Really?”

The Shibasaki ferry, 650 years later

In the Heisei era, a new bridge was built on the Tachikawa bank: the Tachihi Bridge (立日橋, Tachihi-bashi), its name made from the first characters of Tachikawa and Hino.

According to Tachikawa City’s timeline, the Tachihi Bridge partly opened in 1989 and fully opened in 1991. The road bridge opened first, as part of the construction of the Tama Toshi Monorail, and when the monorail opened from Tachikawa-Kita to Tama-Center in January 2000, monorail trains began to run across it.

The Japanese Wikipedia article on the Tama River, in its list of ferries, says of the Shibasaki ferry: “Old Kamakura road; abolished with the fall of the Kamakura shogunate. The Tachihi Bridge was later built here.” The Kamakura shogunate fell in 1333. The Tachihi Bridge opened in 1989. By that arithmetic, it took a little over 650 years for a road across the river to return near the old Shibasaki ferry. This time the road leads not to Kamakura but to Tama-Center, by monorail.

The typhoon of 2019

Then in October 2019, Typhoon Hagibis, known in Japan as the East Japan Typhoon or Typhoon No. 19, struck the Tama. I wrote in the Nekawa episode about how a pier on the Tachikawa side of the Hino Bridge sank and the bridge was closed. According to Wikipedia, this typhoon flooded a wide area of the Tama basin on a scale not seen in 45 years, since the Komae flood of 1974.

In response, the national government, Tokyo and the cities and wards along the river drew up the “Tama River Emergency Flood Control Project.” According to the Keihin River Office, from fiscal 2019 to fiscal 2025 it is carrying out channel excavation, tree clearing, weir reconstruction and levee works, at a cost of about 25.5 billion yen. The goal is to prevent flood damage from the Tama overflowing in a flood on the same scale as the 2019 typhoon.

On a river that once suffered from too much digging of its gravel, they are now digging the riverbed so that floods can pass. The purpose and the method are of course entirely different. Even so, I was a little surprised at how far the meaning of the word “dig” has travelled on the same river.

The answer: why the train crossed before the people

The train crossed the river 37 years before people could walk across. From the records, I picked out three reasons.

The first is the river itself. The Tama is a steep, rampaging river, and in the Edo period, for military and technical reasons, ferries rather than bridges were the norm. Even at Rokugo on the Tokaido, bridges were washed away time after time.

The second is the power to build bridges. The first permanent bridge on the Tama below Ome since the mid-Edo period was a railway bridge of 1872. The road bridge at Rokugo, built in 1873, was wrecked by flood after flood and abolished in 1903. The first to have the strength to set solid piers in the river was the railway.

The third is the will of the town. According to Tachikawa City, the Kobu Railway was first planned along the Koshu Kaido or the Ome Kaido, but strong opposition from residents along those roads blocked it, and the people of Tachikawa and Sunagawa villages, who saw the railway’s value, campaigned to attract it, so that today’s line was laid. The train crossed the river at Tachikawa partly because Tachikawa’s people invited it.

People sometimes say Tachikawa is a town with nothing in it. But along its southern edge there was a ferry put out of work by the fall of Kamakura, a ferry that carried cars on boats, a railway bridge whose 1889 brick piers still hold up trains, the shogun’s sweetfish, daytime cormorant fishing, and a gravel railway. And under the station square sleeps a river that hid itself eleven years after it was named.

Upstream of the Hino Bridge is the Tachihi Bridge, and upstream of that, the Chuo Line railway bridge. Three bridges stand in a row, each wearing the face of a different age. And between them, the Tama River flows on today as if nothing had ever happened.

Answer to the detour quiz

The answer is (B), the Chuo Line railway bridge. The Kobu Railway’s Tama River bridge was completed in 1889 and came into use on 11 August. The road bridge, the Hino Bridge, opened in 1926, and the Tachihi Bridge partly opened in 1989. The train crossed the Tama at Tachikawa 37 years before there was a bridge people could walk over.

Before you go

• Getting there from Tachikawa Station: take the Tama Toshi Monorail (the monorail that runs above the station) from Tachikawa-Minami Station. The next stop is Shibasaki-Taiikukan; it and Koshu-Kaido Station are both near the Tachihi Bridge. Upstream of the Tachihi Bridge is the Chuo Line’s Tama River railway bridge, and downstream is the Hino Bridge.
• From central Tokyo: Tachikawa is on the JR Chuo Line from Shinjuku, the same line as the 1889 Kobu Railway in this story. Carry an IC card such as Suica or PASMO to save buying tickets each time.
• The Hino ferry monument and the riverside green: a monument to the Hino ferry stands at the corner of the sewage treatment plant grounds in Nishiki-cho. Tachikawa City’s “Tachikawa Walking Map” introduces a course of about 4.5 km taking in Shibasaki Citizens’ Gymnasium, the Nekawa Green Path, Fusai-ji Temple, the Tama River cycling road and the Hino ferry monument.
• The Hino Bridge is being replaced. Since May 2025, traffic has been using a temporary bridge. Check the latest restrictions on Tachikawa City’s page (in Japanese): https://www.city.tachikawa.lg.jp/kurashi/kotsu/1001934/1024379.html
• Tama River history timeline (Keihin River Office, in Japanese): records of floods, bridges and ferries from the Edo period to Heisei: https://www.ktr.mlit.go.jp/keihin/keihin_index036.html
• Lists of Tama River ferries and bridges (Keihin River Office, in Japanese): https://www.ktr.mlit.go.jp/keihin/keihin00592.html / https://www.ktr.mlit.go.jp/keihin/keihin00613.html
• The tools of Tama River ayu fishing and cormorant fishing appear in the museum handout “Fishing Methods and Gear of the Tama River.” For opening hours and closing days of the Tachikawa Museum of History and Folklore (3-12-34 Fujimi-cho), see the city’s facility page: https://www.city.tachikawa.lg.jp/shisetsu/1008065/1008098.html
• Safety: the riverbed is dangerous in heavy rain. Water levels on the Tama can be checked on the Keihin River Office’s real-time information. When the river is rising, do not go down onto the riverbed.
• Combine it with: from the Tachihi Bridge, walk downstream along the Tama towards the Hino Bridge, then return to Tachikawa Station’s South Exit by way of the Nekawa Green Path. In one walk you can trace the ferries, the bridges and the river that was filled in.

After the river walk: the North Exit of Tachikawa Station

The wind blows freely along the Tama levee. Walk from the Tachihi Bridge to the Hino Bridge and the Nekawa Green Path, and you may find your body has cooled more than you realised.

Back at Tachikawa Station, a 1-minute walk from the North Exit, is On the Shore Tachikawa (オンザショア立川店), a hot yoga studio heated with lava stones, on the 3rd floor of the Etoile Building, 2-14-10 Akebonocho, Tachikawa, Tokyo. Besides lava-stone hot yoga, it 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, 8:00 to 23:30, so it fits whether you walk the levee in the morning or come back to the station after dark.

For first-timers there is a trial yoga lesson for ¥1,980 (tax included), with two bath towels, one face towel and a mat rental included, so you can drop in almost empty-handed after a walk. 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, who holds Japan’s top English qualification (Eiken Grade 1) and a perfect TOEIC score and once worked as a translator and overseas interpreter at Nomura Securities, and who lived in Alaska for three years, often helps guests from the US bases in English herself (visitors from abroad have even left Google reviews about the care they received in English); if you would like an English-friendly lesson, just say so when you book.

Studio information: https://ontheshore.jp/ Trial lesson booking: https://site.locaop.jp/C0aVK?_src=hp

This North Exit once stood under water on rainy days. Now, rain or shine, all you have to do is climb the dry steps in front of the station.

Cover photo: The Tachihi Bridge over the Tama River, linking Shibasaki-cho in Tachikawa with Hino City (Photo: トダジー / CC BY 3.0 / Wikimedia Commons)

Information as of October 2026.

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