National Route 289 is an incomplete
national highway in
Japan
Japan ( ja, 日本, or , and formally , ''Nihonkoku'') is an island country in East Asia. It is situated in the northwest Pacific Ocean, and is bordered on the west by the Sea of Japan, while extending from the Sea of Okhotsk in the north ...
that will eventually connect central
Niigata with
Iwaki, Fukushima
is a city located in Fukushima Prefecture, Japan. , Iwaki had a population of 337,765 in 143,500 households, and population density of 270 persons per km2. The total area of the city is , making it the largest city in the prefecture and the 10th ...
with a total length of .
At present, work is underway to complete an central section that will join the eastern and western portions together through the very northern part of the
Japanese Alps
The is a series of mountain ranges in Japan which bisect the main island of Honshu. The peaks that tower over central Honshu have long been the object of veneration and pilgrimage. These mountains had long been exploited by local people for raw m ...
on
Niigata's and
Fukushima
may refer to:
Japan
* Fukushima Prefecture, Japanese prefecture
** Fukushima, Fukushima, capital city of Fukushima Prefecture, Japan
***Fukushima University, national university in Japan
*** Fukushima Station (Fukushima) in Fukushima, Fukushim ...
's prefectural border.
When finished, traffic will be able to travel coast to coast across Japan in a link between the
Sea of Japan
The Sea of Japan is the marginal sea between the Japanese archipelago, Sakhalin, the Korean Peninsula, and the mainland of the Russian Far East. The Japanese archipelago separates the sea from the Pacific Ocean. Like the Mediterranean Sea, it h ...
and
Pacific
The Pacific Ocean is the largest and deepest of Earth's five oceanic divisions. It extends from the Arctic Ocean in the north to the Southern Ocean (or, depending on definition, to Antarctica) in the south, and is bounded by the continen ...
.
Sections
Niigata
The western part of Route 289 begins in
Yoshida
Yoshida (written: 吉田 lit. "lucky ricefield") is the 11th most common Japanese surname. A less common variant is 芳田 (lit. "fragrant ricefield"). Notable people with the surname include:
*Ai Yoshida, Japanese sailor
*, Japanese idol, singer ...
passing east through the towns of
Tsubame and
Sanjo. It currently ends in the mountains 10 km south east of
Shitada village.
Fukushima
The eastern part of Route 289 starts in Iwaki, Fukushima near
Nakoso Station. It then heads west through
Shirakawa and passed
Shinshirakawa. It currently ends 12 km north west of
Nishigō village.
Central part
Work to join the east and west sections began in 1999. But the scheme suffered a major setback after the
Chūetsu earthquake in 2004 when
landslip
Landslides, also known as landslips, are several forms of mass wasting that may include a wide range of ground movements, such as rockfalls, deep-seated slope failures, mudflows, and debris flows. Landslides occur in a variety of environments, ...
s covered large parts of the route. In 2005/06 efforts were made to clear these blockages and restart building work.
The finished route, which presently is a dirt track and is only passable by 4x4s or construction traffic, will include several spanned bridges, avalanche covers and a 1.5 km tunnel.
A provisional completion date was given as 2012 but that has since lapsed.
References
External links
Tunnel Completion(In Japanese)
National highways in Japan
Roads in Fukushima Prefecture
Roads in Niigata Prefecture
{{Japan-road-stub