It seems never to be crossed: what is the widest avenue in the world

0

For its construction, 60,000 square meters of city real estate had to be demolished.

Avenida 9 de Julio in Buenos Aires, Argentina, belongs to the Guinness Book of Records as the widest avenue in world – about 140 meters. It has 16 lanes of traffic, so crossing from one side to the other is quite difficult.

Oddity Central writes about it.

The history of Avenida 9 de Julio goes back to the heyday of the Argentine capital. Buenos Aires was called the “Paris of South America”, so the local authorities decided to consolidate this reputation by building a monumental infrastructure object inspired by Paris's Champs Elysees. A simple copy was not enough, they wanted something bigger, so they settled on a city thoroughfare that ran through the center of the city and was twice as wide as the famous French Avenue. It was a colossal project that lasted almost half a century, but in 1980 Avenida 9 de Julio was finally completed. It still holds the record for the “widest avenue in the world.”

Creating enough space for an avenue wider than any other in the center of the metropolis was in itself a huge challenge that led to the demolition of 60,000 square meters of the city's real estate and resettling thousands of residents just to complete its first section.

Today, Avenida 9 de Julio remains as stunning as it was when it opened, and twice as chaotic. With a total of 16 lanes of traffic from one side to the other, plus four additional lanes for public transport buses, a central pedestrian zone and at least seven sidewalks between the car lanes, it takes quite a while to cross.