5 Impressive Highway Megaprojects

 Mega projects all over the world constantly bring on feelings of awe and wonder from people who see them huge dams that hold back massive bodies of water giant skyscrapers that can be seen from miles around all of them speak volumes to the scale of modern engineering but how often do we forget about the simple things like roads and highways we see them so often that their grandeur almost fizzles into obscurity in reality there are some major highway mega projects all over the world that can be just as impressive as things like dams or skyscrapers from china to the united states here are five of the world's most impressive highway mega projects  

it's pretty safe to say that all of us have traveled on a highway at some point and had to navigate an insanely complex interchange the interstate joins with the highway but not before branching off into that other road at this exit and well you get the picture well that's exactly what it looks like in china in the city of Chongqing this is one of the most extreme interchanges found anywhere on earth construction began in 2009 but the massive knot of roads and highways wasn't completed until 2017. this gigantic structure consists of 18 different ramps that go off in eight directions on five different levels the highest level is over 37 meters above the ground although it may be super cool to look at from the outside motorists consider this thing a huge headache and a nightmare to navigate reports have shown that even gps systems have trouble finding their way around on this interchange however officials still defend it and claim that the directions and exits on the interchange are clearly marked and even if you make a mistake they have made it easy to simply turn around well take a look and see for yourselves let us know in the comments if you believe them.

 

when cities start growing real estate can be very hard to come by oftentimes the city wants to plan on expanding and upgrading things but previous landowners can make it very difficult as they want to hold on to what they have that was the case in Osaka Japan when redevelopment of the area was approved but a wooden charcoal business wanted to hold onto the property rights for a certain plot of land there were plans for a highway to be built so any building permits were put on hold developers and officials frustrated began negotiating with the owner and after some time a very unique compromise was reached after a five-year negotiation the property owners and hashing expressway corporation reached a settlement the highway would cut through the building that's right through the building floors five six and seven are occupied by the highway while the rest of the floors are office spaces the highway itself doesn't even make contact with the building it passes through as a bridge held up by supports next to the building additionally it is surrounded by a structure that protects the buildings and its tenants from noise and vibrations regardless it's truly an impressive structure that does not exist anywhere else on earth  

just outside of Washington dc lies an area known as the mixing bowl but it is officially the Springfield interchange located in the city of Springfield Virginia it connects three of the area's busiest roadways interstate 95 interstate 395 and interstate 495. it earned the name mixing bowl because prior to the reconstruction local drivers as well as long distance drivers had to merge very far to the left or right in order to reach their destinations originally built in the 1960s it was meant to be a simple interchange between i-95 and the capital beltway however after residents voiced opposition to the interstate running through dc i-95 had to be shifted to the eastern portion of the beltway by the 1970s the converging of the various interstates brought over 150000 vehicles per day by the mid-90s the interchange was seeing some 180 accidents per year eventually the Virginia department of transportation took action and started an eight-year seven-phase reconstruction project that would alleviate the major congestion and danger they did this to not only help alleviate costs but to allow for better traffic management as this is one of the most high traffic areas in the country in the end it was one of the largest highway construction projects in us history costing 676 million dollars however it is also one of the most impressive interchanges 

in the nation china is known for having some of the greatest superstructures in the world it's almost necessary with so many people in the country after all there are over 50 cities in china that have populations of more than one million people so it makes perfect sense that the people of china would become experts at building everything on a much larger scale this is what brings us to shanghai china where we have the yan on elevated road and interchange construction on this interchange began in November of 1995 and was completed in 1996 going through the busy Nanjing east road residential district the yen on elevated road stretches for over 15 kilometers and enters at an immaculate exchange that is one of the most photographed urban areas in the country the construction of the interchange itself is nothing short of artistic when viewed from above this convergence of many roads looks like something of a flower or some sort of a snowflake in its geometric shape the beauty is only multiplied once the sun goes down and night falls on the city the bottom of the bridge is illuminated in various shades of blue purple and pink pictures of this area can be found anywhere from calendars and desktop backgrounds to postcards to top it all off this interchange is one of the only six level stacks in the world 

one of the most peaceful things you can ever do is to take a nice drive through the mountains but as far as infrastructure and highway mega projects are concerned mountains pose a significant challenge all of the undulating topography various geographic features and natural formations make building any sort of a highway extremely difficult it's why you rarely find a mountain highway anywhere in the world with more than a couple of lanes however the Chinese government came up with a bigger and better plan than to just build according to the topography instead of building roads that go around the mountains they might as well just build roads that go over the mountains and that's exactly what they did in the human province two of the most traveled and most important highways in the area are the Baotou Mao Ming expressway and the yon shun ji show highway with the country still growing by leaps and bounds the area was in need of having a place where the major roads could converge and give travelers the ability to more easily get to any destination however the area is also a very rural and mountainous region this made it nearly impossible to simply lay down a few sections of road and curve them around these various peaks it took more engineering skill so designers set to work and what they came up with was nothing short of an engineering marvel instead of building a round they built over these highways are supported by long bridges that stretch for miles in each direction coming together into one group of roads right in the middle of a valley when seen from above the full grandeur of this mega project can be fully appreciated now various towns and cities have direct routes between one another trips that once took many hours and sometimes even days can now be made in only a couple of hours at most we may think we have an understanding of how amazing infrastructure can be but these huge builds will really make you realize that there is so much more that is possible when it comes to highway mega projects