Shirane IC West Intersection Live Cam

History

The development of the Shirane IC West Intersection on the Chūō Expressway reflects decades of transportation planning aimed at linking the inland regions of Yamanashi Prefecture with the greater Tokyo metropolitan area. When the Chūō Expressway first opened in the late 1960s, the primary focus was on long-distance connectivity, and interchanges like Shirane IC were constructed with simple diamond layouts to facilitate local access. Over time, as Minami-Alps City—established in 2003 through the merger of several towns and villages—grew into an agricultural and eco-tourism hub, traffic volumes at Shirane IC surged, prompting prefectural authorities to reengineer the westbound exit and entrance ramps in the early 2000s. These upgrades transformed the once-modest junction into a modern, signal-controlled intersection designed to balance high-speed expressway traffic with local road networks.