Tokushima Prefecture is one of four prefectures on the smallest of Japan's four main islands, Shikoku, located in western Japan. It is using Tokushima cedar logs thinned from tree plantations for roadside guardrails, officials of the prefecture announced at a press conference on November 15, 2004. Wooden guardrails are rarely used along prefectural or national roads in Japan.

Wooden guardrails will have been installed along two sections of prefectural road in Tokushima by the time fiscal 2004 ends in March 2005. The cedar wood logs are about 20 centimeters in diameter. Installation costs will be slightly over 20 million yen (about $194,000), twice as much as installing conventional steel guard rails. The prefecture will be trying to reduce the unit price. Cedar guardrails are stronger than steel guardrails, but do not last as long – only about 15 years.

Buddhist pilgrims from across Japan come to Shikoku to follow a well-known pilgrimage route around the island, and some of them walk along ordinary roads open to traffic. Since 2003, Tokushima prefecture has been looking for a way to make walking along these roads more healing and relaxing by using wooden instead of steel guardrails as roadside barriers.

The prefecture combined this idea with the need to efficiently use Tokushima cedar and made a presentation to the Shikoku Regional Development Bureau of the Ministry of Land, Infrastructure and Transport. In response, the Ministry decided to subsidize the installation of wooden guardrails along national and prefectural roads in Shikoku's four prefectures starting in Tokushima in fiscal 2004 and expanding gradually across Shikoku if all goes well.



Posted: 2005/04/09 11:34:57 AM
Japanese version

TAG Ecosystem , Government , Local government , System/Law , Transportation