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M-8 is a short but important Michigan state highway lying within Detroit. Much of it is the Davison Freeway, the world's first urban depressed freeway, which became a connector between the John C. Lodge (M-10) and Walter P. Chrysler (I-75) freeways.
History
In 1941, what had been Davison Avenue in midtown Detroit was rebuilt into the first urban depressed freeway, opening for traffic on November 24th, 1942. The concrete freeway had six lanes without shoulders separated by a small grass median. This segment, including its original concrete, was essentially left untouched for the next 54 years. In 1968, the freeway was extended eastward a few blocks through a junction with the newly opened I-75 to its present day eastern terminus at Conant Street.
Upon its transfer to state control in 1993 -- it had previously been a county-maintained freeway -- the Davison Freeway was designated as M-8. Three years later, the Davison was closed for a year and a half to reconstruct it to Interstate Highway standards with an additional through travel lane and a wider left shoulder for improved safety and traffic handling as well as a new interchange with Woodward Avenue.
In 2001, M-8 was extended to include the 2 mile segment of Davison Avenue between the freeway's western terminus and Davison Avenue's junction with I-96/Jeffries Freeway. Except for a M-8 shield on the Lodge Freeway's Davison Avenue exit signs, the non-freeway portion of M-8 remains unsigned, including at the Davison Avenue exit from the JeffriesDavisonExit.JPG where new Clearview signs were erected as part of a massive 2005 I-96 reconstruction project.
Notes
- As metro Detroit's freeway system developed in the 1960s, an extension of the Davison freeway was intended to connect the Jeffries freeway (at the time planned to run parallel with Grand River Avenue into Farmington) with a southerly extension of the M-53 freeway via Mound Road. Even after the Jeffries was realigned to an east-west route overlaying Schoolcraft Avenue, the Davison expansion plan continued, and the Jeffries interchange with Davison was designed and built to be a freeway-to-freeway connection. With the same master plan in mind, a massive stack interchange was constructed at Mound Road and I-696 in Warren. However, in the early 1970's, the city of Detroit blocked further freeway development; leaving both interchanges with only a pittance of the traffic flow they were designed to handle.
- The freeway portion of M-8 is virtually always referred to as the Davison Freeway, or just "the Davison," rather than by route number.
- This route should not be confused with US 8 which in Michigan consists solely of a short segment of highway in the Upper Peninsula of Michigan with a terminus in Norway, Michigan, 475 miles northwest of Detroit.
External links
Freeways and expressways in Michigan | Michigan state highways
"M-8 (Michigan highway)"