billion yen (US$293,888,888) (equivalent to $ in dollars). Construction of the expressway route was initiated in 1962 in Shibuya 4 chome near Aoyama Gakuin University. The first section of the expressway to be opened to traffic was a section between Roppongi-dōri at Shibuya Interchange and Shibuya 4 chome in October 1964 in time for the beginning of the 1964 Olympics. The construction methods used on this elevated section of highway would later come under scrutiny after they were found to be the underlying cause of the collapse of the elevated Kobe Route in Kobe during the Great Hanshin earthquake of 1995. It was next extended to Tanimachi Junction from Shibuya 4 chome in September 1967. The rest of the expressway between Shibuya and the Tōmei Expressway was completed in December 1971. Further developments to the expressway have been made since its completion, in 2003 the Shibuya Route was included as one of several highways in Japan that make up its section of Asian Highway 1. In March 2010, the expressway was linked to the Central Circular Route upon the completion of Ōhashi Junction. On 7 March 2015, Ōhashi Junction was expanded to carry traffic to and from the Shibuya Route and the newly opened section of the Central Circular Route to the south of Ōhashi Junction. Junction list The entire expressway is in Tokyo. Cultural references The Shibuya Route figures in Haruki Murakami's dystopian fiction novel 1Q84. It is the setting of the novel's opening chapter. The elevated expressway has no shoulders, so turnouts at regular intervals provide places for drivers to park in case of an emergency. The turnouts are equipped with emergency stairways to the streets below. In the novel, one of these emergency stairways serves as a gateway to an alternate reality, a fictionalized version of 1984 that the main character, Aomame, is transported to. References AH1 03 1964 establishments in Japan Roads in Tokyo