Transportation
A Campaign to Give Belgium's Infamous Traffic Jams UNESCO World Heritage Status
The tongue-in-cheek effort reflects a real problem with the country’s transportation networks.
Belgium has a new candidate for receiving UNESCO world heritage status: its traffic jams. Supporters of the idea insist that the country’s car-clogged roads that deserve celebration as achievements as uniquely, specially Belgian as its already listed belfries, art nouveau mansions, and historic mines.
That, at least, is the tongue-in-cheek claim being made by a spoof ad currently doing the rounds. The video features a pompous British actor extolling the splendor of Belgian congestion followed by a link to a petition. Its wholesale trolling of the country’s packed road system comes from exactly the source you might expect—it’s essentially an attack ad from Belgian national rail company NMBS.