What If We Built a Road Around the World?

imagine an ultimate road trip across the globe on a highway along the equator wait there there's no highway along the equator yet so how about we build one what would it take to construct the longest road on earth how long would you spend behind the wheel to complete this epic journey and why would building this highway upset environmentalists this is what if and here's what would happen if we built a road around the world there are about 64 million kilometers of all kinds of roads around the globe but no single highway network that can take you from new york directly to cape town the hypothetical freeway that we're about to build would easily take you from colombia all the way to indonesia combine that with some of the existing road systems and you might just be able to drive anywhere in the world but that would be a very expensive engineering achievement because a big part of this highway would have to be constructed under water on average it takes about five to ten years to build a highway but we wouldn't be building just any highway we're aiming for a forty thousand kilometer long two-lane equatorial road to construct it in about the same time frame as a normal highway we need to be working on different parts of it all at the same time our globe-spanning highway would require about 8 million skilled workers and some 9.2 trillion dollars to build yeah those are some whopping numbers to consider and what would it be like to drive on it i'd say it's pretty cool the equator cuts through 13 countries and three oceans let's say you start in south america in ecuador and travel east through colombia to brazil you'd be enjoying a humid tropical climate and very high temperatures so make sure your car's air conditioning is working before you leave for the trip you'd be passing over mountains and the amazon river and if you decided to go for a refreshing swim remember that the amazon's full of bloodthirsty piranhas waiting to eat you in a matter of minutes just joking piranhas are actually calm scavengers so you can go for a swim at your own risk your amazonian adventures would just be the beginning you would soon reach the atlantic coast of brazil and you'd be about to enter the first underwater stretch the great atlantic tunnel and the view here is rather dull ah finally there's land after days of travel you would make it to africa you'd be driving through the savannas swamps and dense rainforest of gabon and congo and into the deserts of kenya and somalia on your way you might see elephants gorillas buffaloes and leopards and that would make the long trip through the tunnel kind of worth it but then you run out of land and you enter another underwater tunnel this time it's the great indian tunnel hmm oh i see land again it's indonesia with its 17 000 islands scattered around the equator you'd be driving through a series of short tunnels to cross from one island to another and every time you got back on land the scenery would be majestic volcanic landscapes rice fields tropical rainforests i bet you could use a day at the beach after such a long drive okay it's time to move on to the next tunnel the great pacific tunnel is it just me or is this one like three times longer uh no this is the longest underwater stretch of the entire trip and by the end of it you'd have a little bonus in the form of the last exciting spot of the highway the galapagos islands a showcase of evolution where the most unusual forms of life are thriving in the wild a feast for the eyes after that long drive then you would drive a little further through one last short underwater tunnel and end up right where you started in ecuador hey congratulations you made a road trip around the globe traveling at 100 kilometers per hour you'd spend some 400 hours or about 17 days at the wheel 12 of those days you'd be stuck inside a tunnel under the ocean with some breaks for the night rest and some time to enjoy the sights the entire travel time would add up to at least two months hope you can afford such a long vacation but as much fun as this idea sounds it would be an enormous hit on the planet the construction of the highway itself would disrupt ecosystems both on land and in the ocean on top of that during this epic trip your car would emit almost twice as much carbon dioxide as the average car does in a year looks like we'll never see a highway like that running along the equator maybe we could start building flying cars that would require a different type of highway altogether but that's a story for another what if

Channel: What If

Views: 698,344

Rating: 4.9139452 out of 5

Keywords: what if, what happens if, scifi, science documentary, what if scenario, mysteries, what if earth, what if we built a road around the world, road connects the world, road around the world, longest road, global highway, logest distance, building a road around the world, longest road around the world, possible scenario, highway along the equator, the longest road on Earth, epic journey, documentaries, science videos, highway, longest highway in the world, longest highway, ridddle

Id: QmcrSTinqpo

Length: 6min 44sec (404 seconds)

Published: Tue Sep 29 2020