Eshima Ōhashi — the ‘Beta-fumi-zaka’

photo by Totti · CC BY-SA 4.0

photo by Totti · CC BY-SA 4.0

44.7 m above the sea, real gradient 6.1%: a car advert made it look vertical.

The bridge spans Lake Nakaumi between Matsue (Shimane) and Sakaiminato (Tottori) with a central span of 250 metres and a maximum height of 44.7 metres above the sea, to let ships of up to 5,000 tonnes through. A car advertisement filmed it from far away with a telephoto lens, compressing the perspective until it looked like a vertical ramp: since then it has been ‘ベタ踏み坂’, the pedal-to-the-floor slope. The real gradient is 6.1% on the Shimane side and 5.1% on the Tottori side.

Built between 1997 and 2004 as a PC rahmen bridge (girder and piers cast as a single piece of prestressed concrete), it is the longest of its type in Japan: 1,446 metres of deck, at a cost of 22.8 billion yen.

ℹ️ Free to cross by car or bike; no dedicated car park on the bridge. The famous view of the ‘vertical’ slope is photographed from far away with a telephoto lens, not from the bridge itself.

🚉 三軒屋神社 · 32 min walk

Sources: ja.wikipedia.org · kankou-shimane.com

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