Community Road Sign in Shinjuku Ward, Tokyo

Shinjuku Ward's community road program marks narrow residential streets meant for pedestrians first and cars second. The designation stems from a nationwide "komyuniti dōro" initiative launched by Japan's Ministry of Construction in the early 1980s, which funded traffic-calming redesigns — narrower lanes, chicanes, and raised crossings — on selected neighborhood streets across the country. Shinjuku, one of Tokyo's 23 special wards and home to the world's busiest train station, adopted the program to slow through traffic in its dense residential pockets. Each sign carries an outline of the ward it marks, a design used across Tokyo's community road network to show jurisdiction.

Photo taken in March 2023.