Pan-American Highway

The Pan-American Highway from Prudhoe Bay, U.S.A. to Quellón, Chile and Ushuaia, Argentina, with official and unofficial routes shown in South America, and a few selected unofficial routes shown through the United States and Canada as they existed in the early 1960s. In 1966 the new U.S. Interstate highway system brought official status to most previously unofficial routes in the lower 48 states.

The Pan-American Highway^[1] is a network of roads measuring about 30,000 kilometres (19,000 mi)^[2] in total length. Except for a rainforest break of approximately 160 km (100 mi), called the Darién Gap, the roads link almost all of the Pacific coastal countries of the Americas in a connected highway system. According to Guinness World Records, the Pan-American Highway is the world's longest "motorable road". However, because of the Darién Gap, it is not possible to cross between South America and Central America with conventional highway vehicles. Without an all-terrain vehicle, it is necessary to circumnavigate this terrestrial stretch by sea.

The Pan-American Highway passes through many diverse climates and ecological types, from dense jungles, to arid deserts, to barren tundra, some of which are passable only during the dry season, and in many regions driving is occasionally hazardous.

Development and construction

The concept of an overland route from one tip of the Americas to the other was originally proposed at the First Pan-American Conference in 1889 as a railroad; however, this proposal was never realized. The idea of building a highway emerged at the Fifth International Conference of American States in 1923. The first conference regarding construction of the highway occurred on October 5, 1925. Finally, on July 29, 1937, Argentina, Bolivia, Chile, Colombia, Costa Rica, El Salvador, Guatemala, Honduras, Mexico, Nicaragua, Panama, Peru, Canada, and the United States signed the Convention on the Pan-American Highway, whereby they agreed to speedy construction, by all adequate means.^[3] In 1950, Mexico became the first Latin American country to complete its portion of the highway.^[4]

Countries served

Map of the Alaska Highway portion (in red) of the Pan-American Highway system.

The Northern Pan-American Highway travels through 9 countries:

The Southern Pan-American Highway travels through 8 countries:

Important spurs also lead into 4 countries:

Hemispheric overview

The Pan-American Highway system is physically mostly complete and extends in de facto terms from Prudhoe Bay, Alaska, in North America to the lower reaches of South America. Several southern highway termini are claimed to exist, including the cities of Puerto Montt and Quellón in Chile and Ushuaia in Argentina. West and north of the Darien Gap, it is also known as the Inter-American Highway through Central America and Mexico where it splits into several spurs leading to the Mexico–US border.

The entire Interstate Highway System in the United States has been officially designated part of the Pan American system by the Federal Highway Administration, although this has never been reflected in any of the official interstate signage. Of the many freeways that make up this very comprehensive system, there are several that stand out because of their mainly north-south orientation and their links to the main Mexican route and its spurs. These include the following:

• Interstate 8 indirectly connects Interstate 19 and its Mexican spur at Nogales with I-5 and Interstate 15 at San Diego, each of which leads on separate routes from the latter city towards the Alaska Highway. The north end of I-5 links indirectly with British Columbia Highway 97 north of the Canada–US border. BC 97 becomes the Alaska Highway at Dawson Creek. A technically direct link between the same interstate and the highway 97 system can be found near Weed, California. US route 97 runs northeast then north from this junction and becomes BC highway 97 at the border with Canada. Farther east, I-15 indirectly links to Alberta Highway 2 that eventually crosses into British Columbia and ends at the southern terminus of the Alaska Highway. All routes north of the contiguous 48 states are unofficial.
• Interstate 25 runs north from Interstate 10 at Las Cruces, New Mexico to Interstate 90 in Wyoming. This route has no direct extension into Canada, but links indirectly to Interstate 15 which leads to Alberta Highway 2.
• Interstate 35 is a northerly continuation of the original Pan-American highway following Mexican Federal Highway 85. It extends from Laredo, Texas to the Canada–United States border north of Duluth, Minnesota with a spur, Interstate 29, that leads farther west towards Winnipeg, Manitoba.
• An additional route only partially complete is Interstate 69 which will eventually run northeasterly from the same Laredo border crossing to the Windsor-Quebec City Corridor in Canada where the route becomes unofficial.

Northern section

Alaska, Canada and the contiguous 48 states of the United States

Interstate 35 in the U.S. state of Iowa. I-35 is a de facto branch of the Pan-American Highway

In Canada, no particular road has been officially designated as the Pan-American Highway (the National Highway System, which includes but is not limited to the Trans-Canada Highway, is the country's only official interprovincial highway system). However, some unofficial claims have been made based on routes that are a natural extension of several key American highways that reach the Canada–US border. British Columbia Highway 97 and Highway 2 to Alberta both pick up where the southern end of the Alaska highway leaves off. Highway 97 becomes U.S. Route 97 at the Canada–US border and eventually ends at Interstate 5 in northern California. British Columbia Highway 99 provides an alternate route from Highway 97 just north of Cache Creek that runs through Whistler and Vancouver before ending at the Canada–US border at the north end of Interstate 5 in Washington State, the beginning of the official Pan-American route south of British Columbia. Meanwhile, Alberta Highway 2 runs south and east to Alberta Highway 3 leading into Lethbridge, then south on Alberta Highway 4 to the Canada–US border where it becomes Interstate 15 in Montana, the first official stretch of the Pan-American Highway south of the Alberta route. I-15 runs south all the way to San Diego where it converges with Interstate 5 then heads east as Interstate 8. This links indirectly via a short stretch of Interstate 10 to Interstate 19 that becomes a spur of the Pan-American highway through Mexico at the Nogales border crossing.

In 1966, the Federal Highway Administration designated the entire Interstate Highway System part of the Pan-American Highway System.^[5][6] However comprehensive this designation, there are certain interstates and other smaller highways that attract particular attention because of special names that have been officially or unofficially attached or identity claims that have been made.

The section of Interstate 35 in San Antonio, Texas is referred to as the Pan Am Expressway by locals. I-35 is a northerly continuation of Mexico Highway 85, the original official Mexican route, ending in Duluth, Minnesota, where Minnesota State Highway 61 continues to the Canada–US border near Thunder Bay, Ontario. As a result, the Trans-Canada Highway from Alberta to Thunder Bay has been considered as a possible route for the Pan-American Highway.

Interstate 25 in Albuquerque, New Mexico, was named the Pan-American Freeway,^[7]:248 as an extension of highway 45, the Mexican spur linking El Paso to the original route along highway 85 north of Mexico City.^[8] This portion of I-25 largely follows the historic Camino Real, and thus serves a culturally significant portion of the Pan American system. Like I-35, the complete route of Interstate 25 is an official northerly continuation towards Alberta, where Highway 2 provides a direct (but unofficial) link to the Alaska Highway.

Beyond Alberta, the Alaska Highway through Alaska, Yukon and British Columbia is also claimed as a de facto part of the Pan-American Highway, as well as the Dalton Highway in Alaska. The recently completed Dempster Highway that links Tuktoyaktuk and Inuvik with Yukon and the rest of Canada also reaches the Arctic Ocean but is not claimed as part of the Pan-American system.

Several intra-North American routes have names that make no direct reference to the Pan-American Highway, in part because some sections follow highways that are not up to full freeway standard:

• The CanAm Highway follows Interstate 25 from El Paso to U.S. Route 85 north of Denver, Colorado, then continues into the Canadian province of Saskatchewan, following parts of provincial highways 35, 39, 6, 3, and 2 in succession before terminating at La Ronge. This route was first proposed during the 1920s but was never properly promoted nor developed. A section of the CanAm in southern Saskatchewan has regressed to the point where it is no longer a paved highway.^[9]
• The CANAMEX Corridor is designated through the western United States from Arizona north to Montana,^[10] and continues as Alberta Highway 2.
• The NAFTA Superhighway tag has been unofficially used in connection with Interstate 35 from Laredo, Texas to the Canadian border that downgrades to a non-freeway route ending at Thunder Bay, Ontario. A spur follows Interstate 29 to the border that also downgrades to a regular highway that extends to Winnipeg, Manitoba. The NAFTA highway also sometimes unofficially includes Interstate 69 from the Canada–US border at Port Huron, Michigan, to Indianapolis, Indiana, and its mostly built extension southward to western Kentucky. In Canada, Ontario Highway 402 and other freeways in the Windsor-Quebec City Corridor can be considered a northeastward extension of this version of the NAFTA superhighway. To the southwest, from western Kentucky to the Mexican border, there is currently no single superhighway yet completed. Pending completion of I-69, the main highway links to Mexico follow parts of US routes 45 and 51 from Kentucky to western Tennessee, I-155 into Missouri, parts of Interstates 55 and 40 from Missouri to Arkansas, and I-30 to the Texas stretch of I-35 that continues to the Mexican border at Laredo, Texas. The incompleted section of I-69 south of Kentucky is expected to eventually continue southwestward to the Texas Gulf Coast. It will have a spur linking to the original Pan-American route through Mexico to Laredo, and additional branches extending to the Mexican spurs that cross the border at Pharr, Texas, and Brownsville, Texas.

Mexico

1933 map of the Inter-American Highway portion of the Pan-American Highway.

The official route of the Pan-American Highway through Mexico (where it is known as the Inter-American Highway) starts at Nuevo Laredo, Tamaulipas (opposite Laredo, Texas) and goes south to Mexico City along Mexican Federal Highway 85. Later branches were built to the border as follows:

• Nogales spur – Mexican Federal Highway 15 from Mexico City
• El Paso spur – Mexican Federal Highway 45 from Highway 85 north of Mexico City to Ciudad Juárez, Chihuahua)
• Eagle Pass spur – unknown, possibly Mexican Federal Highway 57 from Mexico City to Piedras Negras, Coahuila
• Pharr spur – Mexican Federal Highway 40 from Monterrey to Reynosa, Tamaulipas
• Brownsville spur – Mexican Federal Highway 101 from Ciudad Victoria to Matamoros, Tamaulipas

From Mexico City to the border with Guatemala, the highway follows Mexican Federal Highway 190.^[11][12][13]

Central America

Pan-American Highway in Chimaltenango (Guatemala), 2001.

Pan-American Highway at David, Chiriquí

The Pan-American (or Inter-American) highway passes through the Central American countries with the highway designation of CA-1 (Central American Highway 1). In Guatemala, it passes through 10 departments, including The Department Of Guatemala, where it passes through Guatemala City. In El Salvador, it passes through the cities of Santa Ana, Santa Tecla, Antiguo Cuscatlán, San Salvador, San Martín, San Miguel, and crosses the border into Honduras at Amatillo. From Honduras, it passes into Nicaragua, passing through the Nicaraguan cities of Somoto, Estelí, Sebaco, Managua,Jinotepe, and Rivas before entering Costa Rica at Peñas Blancas. In Costa Rica, it passes through Liberia, San José, Cartago, Pérez Zeledón, Palmares, Neily, before crossing into Panama at Paso Canoas. In Panama, it crosses the Panama Canal via the Centennial Bridge, and ends at Yaviza, at the edge of the Darién Gap. The road had formerly ended at Cañita, Panama, 110 miles (180 km) north of its current end. United States government funding was particularly significant to complete the high-level Bridge of the Americas over the Panama Canal, during the years when the canal was administered by the United States.

Belize was supposedly included in the route at one time, after it switched to driving on the right. Prior to independence, as British Honduras, it was the only Central American country to drive on the left side of the road.

Darién Gap

Map of the Darién Gap and the break in the Pan-American Highway between Yaviza, Panama and Turbo, Colombia

The Pan-American Highway is interrupted between Panama and Colombia by a 100 km (60 mi) stretch of marshland known as the Darién Gap. The highway terminates at Turbo, Colombia and Yaviza, Panama. Because of swamps, marshes, and rivers, construction would be very expensive.

Efforts have been made for decades to eliminate the gap in the Pan-American highway, but have been controversial. Planning began in 1971 with the help of United States funding, but this was halted in 1974 after concerns raised by environmentalists. Another effort to build the road began in 1992, but by 1994 a United Nations agency reported that the road, and the subsequent development, would cause extensive environmental damage. There is evidence that the Darién Gap has prevented the spread of diseased cattle into Central and Northern America, which have not seen foot-and-mouth disease since 1954, and since at least the 1970s this has been a substantial factor in preventing a road link through the Darién Gap. The Embera-Wounaan and Kuna have also expressed concern that the road could bring about the potential erosion of their cultures.

The Darien Gap has challenged adventurers for many years. A 1962 expedition with Chevrolet Corvair rear-engine cars failed.^[14] A 1971-72 British expedition from Alaska to Argentina attempted to transit the Gap with two standard production Range Rovers, supported by a team of Land Rovers. They barely succeeded in thrashing a passage through the extreme terrain.^[15] In 1979 a team led by Mark Smith drove standard production CJ7-model Jeeps from South to North, traversing the Gap - with difficulty.^[16] In June 1984, Loren and Patty Upton took 741 days slogging, winching, chopping and digging their way through the inhospitable jungles of the Darién Gap.

One proposed option to bridge the gap is a short ferry link from Colombia to a new ferry port in Panama,^[17] with an extension of the existing Panama highway that would complete the highway without violating these environmental concerns.

Southern section

A Vía PanAm shield sign is sometimes found on routes in South American countries (such as Chile) associated with the Pan-American Highway.

Sculpture of a native man standing at the entrance of Fusagasugá, Colombia, over the Highway 40.

Ecuador, Peru, Chile, Argentina and Paraguay

Monument on the Equator on the highway near Cayambe, Ecuador.

Ecuador Highway 35 runs the whole length of that country. Peru Highway 1 carries the Pan-American Highway all the way through Peru to the border with Chile.

In Chile, the highway follows Chile Route 5 south to a point north of Santiago (Llaillay), where the highway splits into two parts, one of which goes through Chilean territory to Puerto Montt, where it splits again, to Quellón on Chiloé Island, and to its continuation as the Carretera Austral. The other part goes east along Chile Route 60, which becomes Argentina National Route 7 at the Argentinian border and continues to Buenos Aires, the end of the main highway.^[18] The highway network also continues south of Buenos Aires along Argentina National Route 3 towards the city of Ushuaia in Tierra del Fuego. Another branch, from Buenos Aires to Asunción in Paraguay, heads out of Buenos Aires on Argentina National Route 9. It switches to Argentina National Route 11 at Rosario, which crosses the border with Paraguay right at Asunción. Other branches probably exist across the center of South America.

Almost all Pan-American sections in Gran Buenos Aires are modern and fast main highways

West Access to Buenos Aires

West Indies section

Plans have been discussed for including the West Indies in the Pan American Highway system. According to these, a system of ferries would be established to connect terminal points of the highway. Travelers would then be able to ferry from Key West to Havana, drive to the eastern tip of Cuba, ferry to Haiti, drive through Haiti and the Dominican Republic, and ferry again to Puerto Rico. Included in this system would also be a ferry from the western tip of Cuba to the Yucatán Peninsula. Mexico has already surveyed a route which will run across the Yucatán, Campeche, and Chiapas to San Cristobal de Las Casas, on the Pan American Highway. ("The Pan American Highway System" by Travel Division Pan American Union, Washington D.C. October 1947)

Art and culture

Travel writer Tim Cahill wrote a book, Road Fever, about his record-setting 24-day drive from Ushuaia in the Argentine province of Tierra del Fuego to Prudhoe Bay in the U.S. state of Alaska with professional long-distance driver Garry Sowerby, much of their route following the Pan-American Highway.^[19]

In the British motoring show Top Gear, the presenters drove on a section of the road in their off-road vehicles in the Bolivian Special.

In 2003, Kevin Sanders, a long-distance rider, broke the Guinness World Record for the fastest traversal of the highway by motorcycle in 34 days.^[20]

In 2018, a British cyclist named Dean Stott who had planned on riding the length of the Americas in 110 days to set a new Guinness World Record ended up completing the 14,000-mile journey in just under 100 days after learning that he and his wife had been invited to the royal wedding, revealing that he would have missed the event had he stuck to his original schedule.^[21]

Photo gallery

• 
  The northern end of the Pan-American Highway at Deadhorse, Alaska
• 
  Interstate 25 (Pan-American Freeway) approaching the Big I interchange in Albuquerque, New Mexico, USA
• 
  Pan-American Highway through San Martin, El Salvador.
• 
  Another view of the Pan-American Highway in El Salvador.
• 
  Pan-American Highway in El Salvador between Lourdes and Santa Ana; this flat 1.5 km long straight section can be used as an airstrip and it was used during El Salvador Civil War.
• 
  Highway in Guanacaste, Costa Rica (going towards the Nicaraguan border, still many kilometres away.)
• 
  Pan-American Highway in Tres Rios, Costa Rica, right before the toll plaza (about 337 more km to go until the Panamanian border).
• 
  Panamericana – Pan American Highway – in Pichincha, Ecuador, near Cashapamba
• 
  Panamericana – northern Peru near Pacasmayo
• 
  Panamericana near Puerto De Lomas, Peru
• 
  Panamericana in the Atacama Desert northern Chile
• 
  GMC Suburban traveled all of the Pan-American Highway. Patagonia, Chile.
• 
  Panamericana - Pan American Highway - in the Cordillera de los Andes, southern Ecuador, near to Catacocha, 2500m / 8000 ft Elev.
• 
  National Route 7—Pan-American Highway in Junín, Buenos Aires, Argentina

See also

• CANAMEX Corridor
• Continental 1
• Trans-Siberian Highway
• Buenos Aires

References

Sources

• Plan Federal Highway System, New York Times May 15, 1932 page XX7
• Reported from the Motor World, New York Times January 26, 1936 page XX6
• Hemisphere Road is Nearer Reality, New York Times January 7, 1953 page 58
• 1997–98 AAA Caribbean, Central America and South America map
• Popular Mechanics, March 1943, Longest Road In The World

External links

• Media related to Pan-American Highway at Wikimedia Commons
• Pan-American Highway travel guide from Wikivoyage
• Geographic data related to Pan-American Highway at OpenStreetMap