The world's most annoying road

TL;DR

The Pan-American Highway has a 60-mile gap in the Darién jungle that may never be filled due to politics, ecology, disease, and geography.

Key Points

• 1.The Pan-American Highway originated from a 19th-century railroad dream. US Secretary of State James G. Blaine proposed a 15,000-mile railway connecting North and South America in 1889; by the 1920s, delegates agreed a road was more practical and achievable.
• 2.The highway is technically incomplete and broken into two unconnected roads. Every country on the route has a section except for a single 60-mile gap on the Panama-Colombia border known as the Darién Gap, roughly the distance from London to Brighton.
• 3.The Darién is considered the world's deadliest jungle. It features mountainous terrain, deep swamps, poisonous wildlife, disease-carrying mosquitoes, carnivorous jaguars, and torrential rain — making even the first vehicle crossing in 1960 take 136 days at half a mile per day.
• 4.Multiple powerful stakeholders actively oppose completing the road. Panama fears Colombian invasion, North American governments protect livestock from foot-and-mouth disease, 40,000 indigenous locals fear colonisation, and the USA worries a paved road would become a drug cartel superhighway.
• 5.Half a million migrants crossed the Darién Gap on foot in 2023 alone, with hundreds dying. Despite this humanitarian toll, the road will likely never be built because shipping is cheaper for goods and flying is easier for people — making it 'really annoying' but arguably justified.