From 26-Lane to 200 MPH Limits: Discover the World’s Most Extreme Highway Records
A highway is any public road or other public way on land which has two or more lanes per direction. The first highway was built 175 years ago.
World's record highways:
World's first limited access road: on Long Island New York in the United States known as the Long Island Motor Parkway. It was completed in 1911.
World’s first limited access road: Constructed in Italy in 1922.
Longest international highway: The Pan-American Highway. Measuring about 48,000 kilometres (30,000 mi) in total length travels through 14 countries: Canada, United States, Mexico, Guatemala, El Salvador, Honduras, Nicaragua, Costa Rica, Panama, Colombia, Ecuador, Peru, Chile and Argentina. It’s discontinuous because there is a significant gap in it in southeastern Panama, the Darien Gap, where the rainfall is immense and the terrain is entirely unsuitable for highway construction.
Longest national highway (point to point): Highway 1 is 14,500 kms (9,000 miles) long and is Australia’s greatest highway following the coast for the most part along its circumferential route around the country. Then, the Trans-Siberian Highway (over 11,000 km/6,800 miles) and the Trans-Canada Highway (8,030 km/4,990 miles).
Widest highway (maximum number of lanes): The Katy Freeway: it has a total of 26 lanes in some sections.
Widest highway (maximum number of through lanes): Interstate 5 between Interstate 805 and California State Route 56 in San Diego, California. It’ 22 lanes wide.
Highest international highway: The Karakoram Highway, between Pakistan and China, is at an altitude of 4,693 metres (15,397 ft) and stretches some 700 kilometers from Islamabad, through the Karakoram mountains and into China.
World’s biggest road networks: The US road network exceeds 6.58 million kilometres in total length, making it the world's longest and biggest road network. China has the world's second biggest road network, exceeding 4.24 million kilometres (as of 2012 data). India's road network, which spanned over 4.1 million kilometres by 2012, ranks as the third biggest in the world.
Busiest highway: Highway 401 in Ontario, Canada, has volumes surpassing an average of 500,000 vehicles per day.
Fastest road in the world: The Autobahn in Germany has no speed limit in some sections. Cars and Motorcycles can travel faster than 200 miles per hour. In USA, SH 130, in Central Texas, near Austin, has a speed Limit of 85 MPH, the fastest in North America.