Great Lakes Roadtrip Day 4 Part 1; Crossing the Mackinac Bridge

The morning started out early in Kalkaska since I wanted to make the 8:20 AM boat to Mackinac Island out of St. Ignace. That being the case I headed northbound on US 131 and cut-off east on County Route C42 on the Alba Highway. Alba had some nice abandoned buildings to check out in the early hours before sunrise. It seems the community has less than 300 people left according the most recent census statistics I could find. I always thought it was interesting that Michigan did County Routes in letter grids much like California does.

I took M-32 to get over to I-75 northbound. In the 58 miles north on I-75 to the Mackinac Bridge I only saw one vehicle traveling the same direction as me, I would say the increase to a 75 MPH speed limit is highly justified. US 31 was routed over to I-75 on a detour to bypass the closure that are currently active.

I essentially had the entire Mackinac Bridge to myself given it was early in the morning. There was some work going on one of the suspension pillars which was odd to see active on a Sunday much less at such an early hour.

Kind of amazing to think that it really took until 1957 to have a completed roadway crossing of the Straights of Mackinac. I've always liked the view of the bridge from the Bridge View park which has a nice angle at the full five miles. I wonder how the design would have been altered to if the bridge had begun construction after the Federal Highway Act rather than in 1954.

The funny thing about the Bridge View Park is that the road leading to it is called Boulevard Road.

Stopped by the terminus of US 2 on my way to the boat in St. Ignace, too bad I didn't adjust more for the direct sunlight.

Comments

Paper Highways: The Unbuilt New Orleans Bypass (Proposed I-410)

There are many examples around the United States of proposed freeway corridors in urban areas that never saw the light of day for one reason or another. They all fall somewhere in between the little-known and the infamous and from the mundane to the spectacular. One of the more obscure and interesting examples of such a project is the short-lived idea to construct a southern beltway for the New Orleans metropolitan area in the 1960s and 70s. Greater New Orleans and its surrounding area grew rapidly in the years after World War II, as suburban sprawl encroached on the historically rural downriver parishes around the city. In response to the development of the region’s Westbank and the emergence of communities in St. Charles and St. John the Baptist Parishes as viable suburban communities during this period, regional planners began to consider concepts for new infrastructure projects to serve this growing population. The idea for a circular freeway around the southern perimeter of t

Hernando de Soto Bridge (Memphis, TN)

The newest of the bridges that span the lower Mississippi River at Memphis, the Hernando de Soto Bridge was completed in 1973 and carries Interstate 40 between downtown Memphis and West Memphis, AR. The bridge’s signature M-shaped superstructure makes it an instantly recognizable landmark in the city and one of the most visually unique bridges on the Mississippi River. As early as 1953, Memphis city planners recommended the construction of a second highway bridge across the Mississippi River to connect the city with West Memphis, AR. The Memphis & Arkansas Bridge had been completed only four years earlier a couple miles downriver from downtown, however it was expected that long-term growth in the metro area would warrant the construction of an additional bridge, the fourth crossing of the Mississippi River to be built at Memphis, in the not-too-distant future. Unlike the previous three Mississippi River bridges to be built the city, the location chosen for this bridge was about two

Huey P. Long Bridge (New Orleans, LA)

Located on the lower Mississippi River a few miles west of New Orleans, the Huey P. Long Bridge is an enormous steel truss bridge that carries both road and rail traffic on an old-time structure that is a fascinating example of a bridge that has evolved in recent years to meet the traffic and safety demands of modern times. While officially located in suburban Jefferson Parish near the unincorporated community of Bridge City, this bridge’s location is most often associated with New Orleans, given that it’s the largest and most recognizable incorporated population center in the nearby vicinity. For this reason, this blog article considers the bridge’s location to be in New Orleans, even though this isn’t 100% geographically correct. Completed in 1935 as the first bridge across the Mississippi River in Louisiana and the first to be built in the New Orleans area, this bridge is one of two bridges on the Mississippi named for Huey P. Long, a Louisiana politician who served as the 40th Gove

Gribblenation

Search This Blog