That’s a lot of traffic, but it’s on a freeway in Beijing, not Houston

A photo of dozens of cars in dozens of lanes of traffic could cause Texas commuters nightmares. But fear not — the image doesn’t show a Houston freeway, as a recent Instagram post says. 

"Houston, Texas holds the record for the world’s widest highway," text over the image says. 

The July 18 post’s caption says: "The Katy Freeway in Houston, Texas holds the title for the world’s widest highway, boasting a remarkable 26 lanes!" 

This post was flagged as part of Meta’s efforts to combat false news and misinformation on its News Feed. (Read more about our partnership with Meta, which owns Facebook and Instagram.)

Featured Fact-check

Threads posts

stated on October 26, 2024 in a Threads post

Four Florida counties had “zero results” Oct. 26, and “something underhanded might be happening.”

Count the lanes in the image and it becomes clear that there are more than 26 there. That’s because this photo was taken in China. It shows the G4 Beijing-Hong Kong-Macao Expressway, which boasted 50 lanes when that picture was snapped — not 26.

The Katy Freeway in Houston is big, and in 2016 we fact-checked a claim that it was the widest freeway in the world. Our conclusion: Katy Freeway, a Houston portion of Interstate 10, has 13 lanes at its widest (not counting frontage roads). There’s a wider freeway in Canada, and, of course, the pictured behemoth Beijing. 

We rate claims this photo shows a Houston freeway False.