Talk:Pan-American Highway/Archive 1

Archive 1

Prologue

There seemes to be considerable disagreement about the actual length of the Pan-American Highway. Just on Wikipedia(as of 22:49, 1 Oct 2004 (UTC)), the length is reported as a "17,000-mile road" on Interstate 5, as "approximately 16,000 miles (25,750 km)" long on Pan-American Highway and Pan-American Highway (route).

A quick Google search on Pan-American Highway length gives such various answers as:

• "Length: 48,000 kilimeters (30,000 miles)" from icivilengineer.com
• "over 24,140 km (15,000 miles) in length" from guinnessworldrecords.com
• as well as many Wikipedia "mirrors"... (Oddly enough, although there are two "mirrors" in the top 10 listings for Google, Wikipedia itself is not listed.)

Anybody know how to get more precise information on this? JesseW 22:49, 1 Oct 2004 (UTC)

See my recent additions to Talk:Pan-American Highway (route) - it appears there is no official route in the US or Canada, and the Highway has branches in Mexico so it hits the border in four places. --SPUI 15:15, 17 Dec 2004 (UTC)

I can't find exact routes of any but the original Laredo branch (I don't trust the crap on Pan-American Highway (route) for the Nogales branch). any help, maybe a map of the system? --SPUI 16:43, 17 Dec 2004 (UTC)

Grrr, a 1953 NYT article lists the border connections as El Paso, Laredo, Brownsville, Pharr and Nogales. It says that the south end will be at Puerto Montt, Chile with the easternmost spur to Rio de Janeiro, and the north end will be in Fairbanks.

The Nogales route is said to be the newest, and it appears it doesn't join the others until Mexico City. The El Paso route hits the Laredo route at Mexico City. The Pharr route, also known as the Eagle Pass route (what?!?), splits at Monterey, and the Brownsville route splits at Ciudad Victoria. --SPUI 17:00, 17 Dec 2004 (UTC)

I suppose you mean "Monterrey" (Mexico), not "Monterey" (California). Am I wrong? -Contricanis

Ah, the irony.

Dan,

Please see the following information on the Pan American Highway.  This is an online article that  contains information on spur routes that may be helpful to you.  However, we cannot vouch for this information at all.  http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pan-American_Highway

Thank you,

Ed

-----Original Message-----
From: SPUI [mailto:drspui@gmail.com]
Sent: Monday, December 20, 2004 4:46 PM
To: Rodriguez, Ed
Subject: Re: Pan-American Highway

On Mon, 20 Dec 2004 15:56:39 -0500, Rodriguez, Ed
<Ed.Rodriguez@fhwa.dot.gov> wrote:
>                 Dear Dan,
>                 In response to your request for information on the Pan American Highway, I offer the following.
<snipped>
Thanks for the information. Unfortunately, it's not exactly what I'm
looking for. I've read an old New York Times article from the 1930s
that describes branches being built in Mexico to the US border at
several places, including Pharr and Brownsville. The info you sent is
more tourist-oriented, describing one route along the system that
tourists could take and possible spurs. I'm looking for a simple
description of the system, in a form similar to this:
main route - Laredo to Yaviza
spur - El Paso to Mexico City
and so on, listing all the spurs that are considered part of the system.
Thanks again for any help.
--
Dan "SPUI" Moraseski

--SPUI 23:13, 21 Dec 2004 (UTC)

Fear of Colombian immigrants "reclaiming" Panama?

That really seems either totally fictional or just a personal belief, in light of current concerns at the moment...this is not 1910 or so, or even ~1970, when such a worry might actually be considered a semi-reasonable attitude. Yet things have changed so much, regionally and worldwide, and I would be extremely surprised if the U.S. government actually had any such fear. Never heard of it outside of this Wikipedia article, personally, and can't find it elsewhere either. Anyone have any other (supported and referenced) ideas about this? Juancarlos2004 01:37, 17 May 2005 (UTC)

• It is mentioned in Tim Cahill's book "Road Fever" as one of several reasons why the gap has never been given a road. Panama was broken off from Colombia, and so there is, or at least was, some fear of a reconquest. Fear of Panama becoming more of a route for drug trafficking is also cited as a reason. Simple ecological problems (dense forest and bad groun) are also mentioned. Who knows. Murple 06:46, 25 September 2006 (UTC)

That is not true, i am panamanian, and as panamá was a colombian department, then all our grandparents were colombian. So why to take care about new colombians in Panamá, they are welcome!!!! Sorry for my english, i prefer french.. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 87.221.214.105 (talk) 13:44, 2 August 2009 (UTC)

Colombians reclaiming Panamá it is not that far fetched

Americans know that roads can be built anywhere as road techniques and technology were developped almost one hundred years ago. To say that the Darien's Gap is the reason for not having a built that part of the Pan-Am highway is just naive. Of course, people in underdevelopped countries is gullible enough to believe that.

Yes, there is a problem on the Panamian border with Colombia, many poor Colombians have settled on the Panama side of the border and the Panama government from time to time deports hundreds of Colombians who cross the border illegally. Colombians migrate to Panama to run away from Colombia's brutal violence, social inequalities and lack of opportunities. On the other hand Panama's population is too small for the size of its territory which means that any massive migration would easily change social map of that nation.

Yes, these are situations that worry the US, who prefers the canal to be "run" by a small but controllable state instead of a country like Colombia with a growing population that might awake to reclaim its place in the international arena. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Tequendamia (talk • contribs) 00:50, 28 May 2005

I'd like to see concrete proof that supports your last paragraph. Specifically, that the U.S. government indeed has that position. There's a huge leap between "we don't want to see more Colombian migrants here" and "we believe that the Colombian migrants will magically take power away from local Panamanians and call to 'annex' Panama back to Colombia". That connection is not automatic and requires greater support. Is there any current and official U.S. document that contains such a claim? A claim which supposes that a massive flood will occur without the Panamanian government doing anything it's not already doing, or even deciding to take harsher measures, and the complete passivity of the rest of the Panamanian population. Not to mention, of course, the belief that poor Colombians would actually want to "seize power" in the first place.Juancarlos2004 18:42, 28 May 2005 (UTC)

Denying that Panama was forcefully separated from Colombia by the US

The supression of that line is just an attempt to deny historical facts which make Americans unconfortable about their own history. --tequendamia 11:39, 29 May 2005 (UTC)

Not at all, considering that I've made edits to other articles to try and include references to what you've just addressed. To hide that is not what I intend, which is to highlight what I've already mentioned and not to try to give external political and historical meaning to it. It's an Wikipedia article about the Pan-American Highway, it has to be encyclopedic, hence the concerns included have to deal with confirmed statements and positions, not with partially true theories which nevertheless have not been fully proven to be the case (at least not as described). Juancarlos2004 15:35, 29 May 2005 (UTC)

The line presents a non-neutral point of view, and is irrelevant to the actual article unless a source can be sited (meaning you must link to an outside source where the topic of that setence is discussed or proven). In my opinion, The line has nothing to do with the Pan-American Highway, it is not a "supression" because this article isn't discussing whether or not the US is trying to keep Colombia from regaining Panama or how wrong or right it was for the US to take Panama from Colombia; that reason for the Darien Gap is an opinion and not a fact. PRueda29 19:16, 21 September 2005 (UTC)

clean-up tag

This article needs to be cleaned up. Please see WikiProject Highways for tips on how to make this page more uniformed to other highway articles. This article also has several POV problems that need to be resolved. PRueda29 19:16, 21 September 2005 (UTC)

map

We need a map for this and related articles. – Kaihsu 13:27, 6 March 2006 (UTC)

Quellon

I question the fact that the highway ends in Quellon. Quellon is on an island in southern Chile, and is not connected to the mainland by any roads. --Hetar 18:10, 5 April 2006 (UTC)

For what it's worth, the 2005 edition of Turistel Sur, the southern edition of a Chilean tourist publication, states Quellon is the "terminal de la ruta Panamericana". Quellon is on a large island, but there is a ferry service running every 30 minutes, 24 hours a day, all year long between the mainland and island parts of the Pan-American. So I'd believe it's considered the end of the route despite being on an island. Chile's Carretera Austral also has sections that require ferry rides, but Villa O'Higgins is still considered the end of that road. TertX 21:12, 16 May 2006 (UTC)

New Mexico

"In May of 1946, the State Highway Commission was requested by the U.S. 85 International Association to designate U.S. 85 as the Pan—American Central Highway between Edmonton, Canada, and Mexico City. No official action resulted from this request."

From page 36 of [1] --SPUI (T - C) 23:49, 13 July 2006 (UTC)

US Segment

I thought that the coastal highway (101 in California, etc) was officially designated as part of the Pan-American? I havent looked this up but its cited often enough in things I've read that I was a little surprised to see this article say there is no official route in the US. Murple 06:48, 25 September 2006 (UTC)

It looks like it may have "semi-officially" gone through the U.S. on US 85, the "Pan-American Central Highway". The northern terminus is fuzzy:

• New Mexico state laws: Fairbanks
• North Dakota state laws: Lac La Ronge
• New Mexico DOT: Edmonton

My 1993 AAA road atlas labels highways 39, 6, 3, and 2 from the U.S. border at US 52 to Lac La Ronge as the Canam Highway. It is likely that, as the Pan-American Central Highway, it used highway 35.

A 1987 newspaper article says that US 85 was recently" named the Pan-American Highway, running to Regina.

According to [2][3] it ran via I-35 and I-135 to Salina, then US 81, I-29, and highway 75 to Winnipeg, then via Regina, Saskatoon, and Edmonton to the Alaska Highway. So it looks like there were at least two of these "semi-official" routes, connecting to Mexico at Laredo and El Paso. --NE2 05:11, 14 July 2007 (UTC)

Languages

Just out of interest, why is the name of the highway in Irish? There is only a tiny number of people speaking Irish in the americas, and it is not a major language. Why not have it in innuit? I may delete it. W2ch00 21:33, 1 June 2007 (UTC)

I'm Irish and I found it most peculiar. Feel free to delete it.217.67.129.153 13:06, 14 June 2007 (UTC)

Tone

The "expeditions" section needs a lot of TLC. It looks like a blog entry. I'm not even sure it meets the requirements for notability. Would someone more familiar with the topic please either rewrite it or remove it? Ayengar 06:18, 26 July 2007 (UTC)

Removed. Stuff like that has no place on Wikipedia. Good luck to him, but he can get a livejournal --Longing.... 01:16, 1 August 2007 (UTC)

Mexican branches

[4] talks about the split into five routes from El Paso, Brownsville, McAllen, Laredo, and Eagle Pass, with a sixth under construction from Nogales to Guadalajara (and presumably on to Mexico City). [5] shows two alternates - "the Central and Pacific Highways". The routes were completed in 1936 (Nuevo Laredo to Mexico City), 1950 (Central, Ciudad Juarez to Mexico City) and 1952 (Pacific, Nogales to Mexico City). --NE2 09:01, 22 September 2007 (UTC)

Southern terminus

Are Punta Arenas, Río Grande, Tierra del Fuego and Ushuaia connected to the Pan-American Highway, or even any other roads at all, or is the only way to get to and from those towns by plane or ship? RingtailedFox • Talk • Stalk 21:38, 22 October 2007 (UTC)

A very good question, and one I've been wondering for the past half-hour myself. A google search finds no mention of any bridge or tunnel traversing the Straights of Magellan, although it turns up many references to ferries crossing the Straight[s?]. If there is a bridge, it seems me that there should be mention made of it, not only in this article, but also in the articles on Ushuaia, Straights of Magellan, Tierra Grande de la Isla del Fuego, and so forth. If there is no bridge, that should be clarified in this article, and probably deserves passing mention in a few other articles as well. Tomer^talk 01:08, 28 October 2007 (UTC)

Punta Arenas, btw, is on the mainland (at least the urban parts of it), not on Tierra del Fuego, in case anyone is wondering... Tomer^talk 01:13, 28 October 2007 (UTC)

"Pan-American Freeway"

There appears to be a road near I-25 (probably a frontage road) in Albuquerque called "Pan-American Freeway" - but is there any available proof (online, printed, whatever) that I-25 actually was designated at any point as the Pan-Am? I see the reference to the SPUI document above, but that specifically makes the opposite claim. As for US 85 being the "CanAm" highway, that helps, but it would be nice to have a final answer on this so I can either keep or remove my statement in Interstate 25 in Colorado regarding the Pan-Am claim. I've also added a notation tag on this article for the same reason, as both articles require the same proof. Duncan1800 (talk) 23:25, 7 February 2008 (UTC)

From mapquest:

http://www.mapquest.com/maps/pan+american+freeway+albuquerque+nm/

This backs up my recollection from when I lived in Albuquerque during the 60s, what there was of I25 at the time was called the Pan American Freeway. Wschart (talk) 20:27, 15 June 2008 (UTC)

Citations

I did a little work on cleaning up the citations attached to this article. Particularly, I attempted to set up in line references where it was obvious which material was being referred to, but four of originally listed references still remain ambiguous. I'm not familiar enough with this topic to add much to the article beyond minor housekeeping. Pixelpaws (talk) 02:34, 20 September 2008 (UTC)

Reference to InterAmerican Highway being built during WWII inaccurate

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/e/e9/Inter-American_Highway_map_October_1933.jpg

because this map says the road was there in 1933 —Preceding unsigned comment added by 71.245.176.68 (talk) 20:34, 31 May 2010 (UTC)

Languages Again

The name of the highway is given in English, Portuguese and Spanish, while the highway crosses Canada which is officially bilingual English/French. Alberta is officially bilingual with English having precedence, but all legal documents being translated into French.

Therefore ommission of French is serious and appears as an affront on purpose, so it should be corrected by adding the official Canadian French name of the highway.

Dutch, which is official in Suriname, may be ommitted because the highway does not go through that country, even though it is on the map. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 212.200.65.112 (talk) 14:21, 18 June 2011 (UTC)

You definitely need to specify the route used on the map -- what roads are marked as red, what roads are marked as orange, and what roads are marked as green. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 99.154.121.191 (talk) 21:08, 11 November 2011 (UTC)

The 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 Yucatan Peninsula. Mexico has already surveyed a route which will run across the Yucatan, Campeche, and Chiapas to San Cristobal de Las Casas, on the Pan American Highway. "The Pan American Highway System" Travel Division Pan American Union, Washington D.C. October, 1947 — Preceding unsigned comment added by 199.44.94.29 (talk) 18:52, 30 December 2011 (UTC)

"Trans-Global Highway" redirect

It is rather bothersome that there is a redirect from a link on the megastructures page from "Trans-Global Highway" to this mostly unofficial TransCONTINENTAL highway. The only time the word "global" comes up when one does a search on the page is for the information indicating that you have been redirected from "Trans-Global Highway", and that is very wrong. There should either be a section created within the existing article that speaks of some proposed Trans-Global Highway. Or, more preferably, a new article be created speaking about the proposed transcontinental highway. Thanks! — Preceding unsigned comment added by 2001:5B0:2DFF:2EF0:0:0:0:3C (talk) 09:15, 22 August 2013 (UTC)

I second that motion; I strongly agree! This particular article ( Pan-American Highway ) is an excellant example of merge over-reach (or overkill?); it's as bad as redirecting "globe" to "North America". Evidently it's all motivated by a zealous effort by Wiki admins. to conserve bandwith, so Wikipedia can continue to operate on a shoe-string budget (with so few servers, employees, etc.). What's doubly annoying is that when I search the history of the redirect, it apparently has been rolled back so that most users cannot see the original article but are only redirected to Pan-American Highway. And now, I suppose I will be chided by a Wiki Admin.---perhaps harshly---for expressing opinions in an improper forum and not extremely limiting my talk here to criticism of the article (from within the article, etc.). Oh well, I'm grown up. Shanoman (talk) 02:05, 21 September 2013 (UTC)

Total length

47,000+ km is more than once round the world. Where did this ridiculous figure come from? My own OR using Google maps suggests the actual distance is more like 22,500 km. For example, according to Google Maps, from Prudhoe Bay to the Mexico-Guatemala border near Ciudad Cuauhtémoc, Chiapas (and forcing the route to follow that roughly illustrated in File:PanAmericanHwy.png), the distance is 10,477 km; and from the Ecuador-Peru border near the town of Aguas Verdes to Ushuaia (via Santiago de Chile and Buenos Aires - again forcing the route to roughly follow the illustration), the distance is 8791 km. The distance through Central America, Venezuela and Ecuador, where Google Maps doesn't offer directions can be estimated, but they are certainly not 28,000 km. Astronaut (talk) 17:34, 29 April 2011 (UTC)

Even taking instead the slightly longer eastern route via Minneapolis and Dallas, only adds and extra 300 km or so. On the other hand, if you add this eastern section rather then using it as an alternative routing, it still only adds 4,622 km to the total length. The 47,000+ km is so ridiculous, I think it needs a citation. Astronaut (talk) 17:46, 29 April 2011 (UTC)

I believe it's around 20,000 miles (32.190 km), the straight line circumference of the Earth at the equator is 25,000 miles—Moebiusuibeom-en (talk) 18:16, 11 May 2011 (UTC)

I drove from Prudhoe Bay on the Arctic Ocean in Alaska to Tierra Del Fuego National Park south of Ushuaia in Argentina. The straight-line, minimum deviation distance of that trip is 18,000 miles (28,800km) -Dangrec (talk) 20:29, 18 June 2014 (UTC)

Repetition of youtuber bit

Down in the arts section there is a bit about a youtuber that's mentioned twice independently. I'd assume one of the two should be removed, or both merged. I've never heard of the youtuber so I don't know anything about it. Might also question how relevant it is to include youtubers. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 2605:A000:121A:80A0:50DD:13F3:844E:DAF (talk) 14:33, 21 November 2018 (UTC)

Vandalism, surely? There aren't 741 days in any month.

It says 741 days. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Arctic Gazelle (talk • contribs) 23:36, 2 February 2021 (UTC)

That whole sentence was added in a single edit (link to diff). Perhaps it means that they started in June and took 741 days? DesertPipeline (talk) 06:19, 19 February 2021 (UTC)

It isn't cited, though; that's certainly something that needs to be rectified if it's legitimate. I added a citation needed cleanup tag to it. DesertPipeline (talk) 06:21, 19 February 2021 (UTC)