of wooded areas and green public facilities; the formulation of “Low Carbon City Development Guidance” that indicate the methodology and basic concept towards $ CO_{2} $ reduction by the units of city and street.

### 3. City and Infrastructure Development by Utilizing Regional Characteristics

(1) Urgent development of roads in city planning that are highly attractive for investment from private sectors

The development of roads in city planning is playing an important role in city revitalization as it induces reconstruction along the road. With those routes having problems in terms of project progress due to the hindrance of few land purchases, the government focuses on providing support to the routes with a completion schedule (120 project hosts and 403 routes as of 1 $ ^{st} $ April 2009) announced by regional public organizations (project hosts). Also, the government promotes the early actualization of project effects and endeavors to perform appropriate project management.

## (2) Development of traffic hubs

Traffic hubs, such as railway stations and bus terminals, centralize various transportation facilities. They provide high convenience and possibilities as the core of city revitalization because they gather a large number of people. Therefore, projects on traffic hub improvement, city transportation system development and comprehensive railway improvement are utilized to enhance the convenience of mutual transfers between transport organizations, unify urban districts separated by railways and smoothen the city traffic/strengthen the functions of central traffic. In FY 2009, Traffic Hub Improvement Projects were conducted at 150 spots (such as the south exit area of Shinjuku Station in Tokyo Metropolis), City Traffic System Development Projects at 50 spots (such as Takaoka Station in Toyama Prefecture), Integrated Railway Improvement Projects at 6 spots (such as Keikyu Kamata Station in Tokyo Metropolis).

Moreover, three spots (such as Nogata Station in Tokyo Metropolis) adopted both the projects on road/city and railways at the same time and conducted an integrated project at three spots such as Nogata Station in Tokyo.

Furthermore, a situation whereby a council formed between regional public organizations and railway companies formulate plans is most appropriate in an overall context, not just so the facilities are supported to conduct station/region cooperation projects that aim for efficient project implementation. One such project has been conducted in the south-area of Sannomiya Station (Kobe City) in an

integrated promotion project together with a project on the usability enhancement of station facilities of Hanshin Sannomiya Station.

## (3) Promotion of measures on railroad crossings

Urgent measures for “non-open railroad crossings $ ^{1} $ ” mostly located in urban centers are required, as they have been causing railroad-crossing accidents and chronic traffic congestions. With this in mind, with the cooperation of road administrators and railway companies, the general inspection of traffic conditions of railroad crossings was carried out for railroad crossings throughout the country in FY 2006 and around 2,000 railroad crossings were taken out as they were deemed to require immediate measure reviews including “non-open railroad crossings”. As a result, the continuous grade separation project to remove railway crossings and expand walkways for improving the security of railroad crossings etc, is being pushed forward urgently with focus.

## (4) Wide-area infrastructure development for attracting enterprises

Enabling each region to attract and accumulate highly competitive growing industries generates significant effects in the aspects of competition/cooperation in East Asia and regional revitalization. Therefore, to work out measures with regional characteristics, it is highly important to invest intensively in necessary infrastructure including airports, ports, railway and wide-area regional highway networks as well as to promote policies for supporting regional employment expansion and economic revitalization.

## 1 ) Enhancement of airport functionality

The air network, connecting all places inside and outside the country, supports the regional tourism promotion and economic activities of enterprises and has a significant impact on regional revitalization. Especially in recent years, due to economic