What’s the oldest road that’s been in more or less continuous use since its construction, that’s still in use for motor vehicle traffic today?
One more stipulation: the basic method of its construction and maintenance has to have been unchanged: changing the pavement composition or grading method would “reset” the clock, but adding new lanes by the same original method and/or do routine maintenance with the same exact materials (but not necessarily the same techniques,) would still count.
Are there any old Roman roads that are being used by motor vehicles that still use the old Roman pavement? I know there are plenty of routes that still follow Roman paths, but not with the pavement still intact.
Dirt roads would still count, too, provided they’ve been in use for some time as roads with the same style of drainage.
Not the oldest, probably, but it’s worth mentioning the Grosse Strasse on the Nazi rally grounds in Nürnburg; 2 kilometers long, 40 meters wide, and paved with granite. It was finished in 1939, and isn’t going to wear out anytime soon. When I was there a few years ago, there were traffic lanes along the edges and trucks parked down the middle.
I don’t suppose the yard of bricks at the Indianapolis Motor Speedway (finished in 1909) counts.
I was thinking of limiting it to more than a certain size, but that certain size would only be a block or so. So the Nazi rally grounds qualifies by size, but the yard of bricks wouldn’t under the qualifications I was going to issue. However, I suppose I shouldn’t limit my enquiry, and it’s still eminently being used by motor vehicles and has been since inception.
i would look in Iraq (Mesopotamia, Sumaria, etc.) or in Egypt. Although elsewhere in the middle east would also be a good guess. I believe Jerico is thought to be the oldest dity and Damascus is the oldest continuously occupied place. So maybe a street in Damascus would be a candidate.
A related question, and perhaps the one a really wanted to ask all along: in those ancient cities, are there places where the pavement technique has not changed in all this time, and where you could still drive a motor vehicle?
I mean, I 'm sure there’s a European city somewhere with continuous medieval/renaissance cobblestones that you can still drive a car through as a regular part of a street. I just don’t know how to look for cites (a quick Google led me to a cite from New York City from the 1600s, but I didn’t look into that one much further.)
“Street Called Straight (Roman Via Recta): One of the main streets of ancient Damascus. Mentioned in the New Testament in connection with St. Paul’s conversion to Christianity, it’s believed to be the oldest known street in the world.”
If you look in the Bible at Acts 9:11, you’ll find reference to “the street called Straight” in Damascus at the time of St. Paul’s conversion, usually dated to about 35 A.D. That street was the main thoroughfare of Roman Damascus, and it still exists in approximately the same form as then.
Ahhh, that’s probably a contender even if it’s unclear to me whether motor vehicles are allowed (especially thru that narrow gate.) It seems to be a perfectly good part of the city transportation infrastructure and not much changed in its construction.
Other pictures, which I did not link to, show the area outside the gate (i.e., behind the camera view from the picture I linked to). The road is not remarkably wide at that point, but is the equivalent of a narrow two-way street, and in fact did have a couple of (compact) cars parked along one side.
The original road, the Via Appia Antica, on the outskirts of Rome is still open to cars (because there are houses along it) and that stretch, out beyond the tomb of Cecilia Metella, still has bits of the Roman road surface.
Do you know of places where the original surface, as specified in the OP, is still being used by traffic? Personally I would not count the occasional landrover as “traffic”. All roads that are regarded as part of the road network in Scotland have been tarred at some point, so if Wade’s routes are still being used the surface has been replaced.
Ditto Dubrovnik. The main street (Stradun) was paved in 1468. Some of the paving has been replaced to repair shell damage from the siege in the 1990s, but to all intenst and purposes it’s still “as is” after 539 years.
Check out this picture. Those stones aren’t wet, just polished mirror-smooth by centuries of traffic. Unfortunately for the purposes of this question, the town centre is pedestrianised, but when I was there I did see motorised garbage carts using the street, if that counts.
I do remember that parts of the town centre of Padua in Italy are virtually unchanged since the 1200s. Whether any of the original paving is still there on roads open to motor traffic I cannot recall.
But to be honest, I think the terms of the OP would lead you to a dirt road somewhere in the Middle East. I doubt if you could identify a single candidate.
There is good evidence that Wilshire Blvd started as an animal path in prehistoric times (think La Brea Tar Pits). Although clearly not in its original condition, it would satisfy the OP’s first condition.
