Traffic congestion is something that every city in the world faces. Finding a solution could be important for sustaining economic activities. Terrence Terashima explains how the Japanese capital is playing its part.
Tokyo, Japan's capital with population over 13 million people, live and commute.
Over four and half million vehicles rush through these streets of Japanese metropolis, daily.
And like any other cities in the world, traffic problems are not unique.
The Metropolitan government tackle vigorously to find spaces and increase traffic lanes. Widening roads, going underground, or even building expressways on top of each other.
Illegal parking is also a major issue. Blocking one lane, causing congestion.
Taxi Driver, Tokyo, said, "I feel that the authorities should crack down on illegal parking a lot more, to free the roads."
However, even the continuous efforts in public works, creating new passages are not enough to solve the traffic problems. It's a catch twenty-two.
Terrence Treashima, Tokyo, said, "In order to reduce traffic congestion, authorities are promoting more use of public transportation. They say the key in cutting traffic jams is road management."
Masafumi Yukawa, Tokyo Metropolitan Government, said, "In order to ease traffic congestion, we have to increase the road capacities. However, to do so we would need large sums of budget and time. We would need to manage road in the meantime."
And the metropolitan government is doing just that. Technologically upgrading traffic lights, redirect traffic with new signs and routes. Officials hope that the road management scheme and new public works spending will improve road conditions in the metropolis by year 2015.