I've never been on Route 66 but I have been down Interstate 69 hundreds of times. It's only a mile away.
Something that always seemed odd to me is that Dixie Hwy, is near hear, and I'm a LONG way from the Land of Dixie. The race track formerly known a Dixie Motor Speed way is 20 miles from my house, and Dixie Hwy is M-54 where it goes through Flint, less than 4 miles away from here. Originally, Saginaw Road in the Flint area was a part of the Saginaw Trail, a Native American footpath in the area. Now Saginaw Street is the oldest red brick paved highway in the whole country.
M-54 is a north–south state trunkline highway in the US state of Michigan that bypasses the city of Flint. It is named Dort Highway for much of its length, in honor of Flint carriage and automobile pioneer Josiah Dallas Dort. The portion from the north end of Dort Highway to Clio Road is part of the historic Saginaw Trail, and was also part of the old Dixie Highway. The modern highway runs for 30 miles through Genesee and Saginaw counties from connections with Interstate 75 (I-75) near Grand Blanc on the south to Birch Run on the north. The highway serves mostly suburban and urban sections of the Flint area. Outside of the city, it also passes through agricultural areas in northern Genesee County and southeastern Saginaw County. It also shares a short east–west section with M-83 near Birch Run.
M-54 starts at exit 109 along I-75 and follows Dort Highway northward through suburban Grand Blanc Township. The area near the southern end is mostly residential, but north of Reid Road, there is the Grand Blanc Metal Center plant for General Motors to the east of the highway. M-54 intersects Hill and Saginaw roads in the unincorporated community of Whigville as the trunkline passes out of the industrial area surrounding the plant. North of the Maple Road intersection, Dort Highway crosses into Burton, and the suburban residential neighborhoods give way to commercial properties along the roadway. There is a rail line leased by Lake State Railway that runs parallel to the highway about a half mile to the east. North of Atherton Road, M-54 crosses into Flint and runs through the city's east side. The trunkline intersects I-69 near the Amtrak station in the city, and a viaduct with a line of the Canadian National Railway. Between Robert T. Longway Boulevard and Davison Road, Dort Highway passes another industrial area. North of Leith Street, east the former Buick City industrial complex, and north of AC spark Plug where most of the M2 .50 BMG machine guns were made, the highway turns to the northwest, and the parallel railroad, still part of the Lake State line, follows suit.
Dort Highway crosses the Flint River on the northeast side of the city near the interchange that connects the highway to I-475. This interchange uses the connection with Stewart Avenue on the western side of the river to provide all of the possible traffic movements between the freeway and the highway. M-54 turns due northerly past the interchange and crosses under the rail line as it heads out of Flint. The area north of the city line on Carpenter Road is dominated by industrial properties as far north as Coldwater Road. Running northward through a more rural area, M-54 passes to the east of Mount Morris. Turning northwesterly, the trunkline is dotted with commercial businesses as it continues to the Clio area. The highway runs parallel to east of the railroad. It passes the Flint Memorial Park cemetery and the Auto City Speedway, a motorsports race track in an area that is otherwise agricultural in nature away from the main highway. The Dort Highway name ends at the intersection with Saginaw Road, and the highway takes on the latter name. East of Clio, M-54 intersects M-57 (Vienna Road) in the unincorporated community of Pine Run. Wrong-way concurrency looking eastward along Birch Run Road.
Past the town, M-54 turns due north on Clio Road before crossing into southern Saginaw County. Over the county line, the name changes to Gera Road, and the trunkline runs through farm fields to an intersection with Birch Run Road. At that intersection, M-54 northbound turns westward and joins M-83 to run concurrently to Birch Run while M-83 continues north to Frankenmuth on Gera Road. Birch Run Road carries opposing directions of the two highways, a phenomenon called a wrong-way concurrency. Running westward, the road is signed as both M-54 northbound or M-83 southbound. About two miles west of the intersection between Gera and Birch Run roads, the two highways meet a common terminus at exit 136 on I-75/US 23 in a commercial district that includes a large outlet mall bordering that freeway. And that's where it becomes Dixie Hwy again.
M-54 is maintained by MDOT like other state highways in Michigan. As a part of these maintenance responsibilities, the department tracks the volume of traffic that uses the roadways under its jurisdiction. These volumes are expressed using a metric called annual average daily traffic, which is a statistical calculation of the average daily number of vehicles on a segment of roadway. MDOT's surveys in 2010 showed that the highest traffic levels along M-54 were the 30,145 vehicles daily north of the I-69 interchange in Flint; the lowest counts were the 2,880 vehicles per day along the M-83 concurrency. M-54 between I-75 in Grand Blanc Township and M-57 near Clio has been listed on the National Highway System, a network of roads important to the country's economy, defense, and mobility. It's not as historic as highway M-1 in Detroit, Woodward Ave, site of the first mile of paved highway on the continent, but there's still a lot of history around it.
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Topic: 25TH ANNIVERSARY OF THE ROUTE 66 HAM RADIO SPECIAL EVENT (Read 1966 times)