U.S. Highway 12

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U.S. Highway 12

U.S. Highway 12 is an east-west United States highway. U.S. 12 is now the only U.S. highway route still serving downtown Detroit, Michigan, whose downtown street grid was laid by Augustus Woodward to have a five-way intersection of the roads that would become U.S. 12, U.S. 10, U.S. 16, U.S. 112, and U.S. 25. (US-24 serves Detroit from Puritan to 8-mile road on the far-west-side)

Contents

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Termini

As of 2004, the highway's eastern terminus is in Detroit at an indeterminate point downtown. Its western terminus is in Aberdeen, Washington at an intersection with U.S. Highway 101.

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States traversed

The highway passes through the following states:

From Elkhorn, Wisconsin to near the Illinois/Wisconsin state line, it is a freeway with a 65 m.p.h speed limit.

Historical note: US-12 originally went into Wyoming before being rerouted into Montana, and was proposed to go into Oregon, but did not.

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Historical route information

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Old Route 12 in Michigan

Old U.S. 12 in Michigan runs from downtown Detroit to Chicago. It was replaced by Interstate 94 in 1962, and the state of Michigan re-routed the U.S. 12 designation to the former route of U.S. Highway 112.

It was an old highway that ran through the middle of the major towns and cities of Michigan between Detroit and Chicago. In most cases the road is still there, and is named either Michigan Avenue, Old U.S. 12 or the Red Arrow Highway, named after a World War I army division. It is still possible to drive the highway from downtown Detroit all the way to The Magnificent Mile in Chicago, with only a few places in which one is required to navigate around the interstate highway. The major break in Old U.S. 12 is in the middle of Michigan half way between the village of Parma and the city of Albion. It is at this point that I-94 cuts south to some degree and bisects the old highway, forcing a motorist to navigate north on smaller roads.

Prior to 1956, the Detroit-Ann Arbor segment of U.S. 12 was routed directly through Ann Arbor, through Plymouth Township, Livonia, and Redford Township, into Detroit, along the Plymouth-Ann Arbor Road corridor to Plymouth Road's eastern terminus at U.S. 16, Grand River Avenue. U.S. 12 continued on Grand River Avenue, co-signed with U.S. 16, into downtown Detroit. Except for the co-signed Grand River Avenue segment, this route was designated as M-14 when U.S. 12 was rerouted to the Detroit Industrial and Willow Run Expressways, which became I-94 in 1962.

The highway is considered an important historic road like Route 66. Some of it had been the original Territorial Road of Michigan laid out in the early 1800s.

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Michigan cities on old route

Detroit, Michigan, Dearborn, Michigan, Ypsilanti, Ann Arbor, Michigan, Chelsea, Michigan, Grass Lake, Michigan, Jackson, Michigan, Parma, Michigan, Albion, Michigan, Marshall, Michigan, Battle Creek, Michigan, Kalamazoo, Michigan, St. Joseph, Michigan, Benton Harbor, Michigan, New Buffalo, Michigan

For a detailed discussion of the current U.S. 12 in Michigan, see the link for the old U.S. Highway 112, which received the designation U.S. 12 in the early 1960s.

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Related US Routes

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Sources


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