M-10 (Michigan highway)
M-10, also known as the John C. Lodge Freeway, and Northwestern Highway. Its southernmost portion runs on Jefferson Avenue in downtown
Detroit,
Michigan, and its southern terminus is at the intersection of Jefferson and Randolph Street; its northern terminus is in West Bloomfield at the intersection with Orchard Lake Road. M-10 was built in segments throughout much of the
1950s and
1960s. It carried several different names before the entire route was finally officially named The John C.
Encyclopedia
M-10, also known as the
John C. Lodge Freeway, and
Northwestern Highway. Its southernmost portion runs on Jefferson Avenue in downtown
Detroit,
Michigan, and its southern terminus is at the intersection of Jefferson and Randolph Street; its northern terminus is in West Bloomfield at the intersection with Orchard Lake Road. M-10 was built in segments throughout much of the
1950s and
1960s. It carried several different names before the entire route was finally officially named The John C. Lodge Freeway in the 1980s. M-10 was named after John Cabot Lodge, an influential Detroiter and mayor of Detroit from 1927-1928.
John C. Lodge freeway portion
This
freeway, almost always referred to as "the Lodge" rather than by route number or full name, is one of several major highways in metropolitan
Detroit running northwesterly from downtown to the Oakland County suburbs. The freeway portion of M-10 ends at "The Mixing Bowl" — the local name for the sprawling interchange of I-696, US-24/Telegraph Rd, the Lodge, Northwestern Hwy, Lahser Rd and Franklin Rd in
Southfield. The M-10 designation continues for several miles beyond as a four to six-lane divided highway.
The John C. Lodge Expressway was originally constructed and opened without any state trunkline route designation until it was assigned Business Spur I-696 in the mid-1960s. It was signed as a business spur of I-696 as a way to circumvent the elements it had that rendered it substandard to the
Interstate Highway System. Soon after, though, the Lodge became part of US-10 when that route was removed from Woodward Avenue. In the mid-1980s, when
US-10 was truncated at
Bay City, the Lodge was redesignated as M-10.
With the Michigan Department of Transportation's deemphasization of proper names historically used by Metro Detroiters for the area's
Interstates, the Lodge is now one of only three in the Detroit area universally referred to by name rather than route number.
The Lodge was originally made up of three legs with unique names: the John C. Lodge ran from Jefferson Avenue in downtown Detroit to Wyoming Avenue; the James Couzens ran from Wyoming to M-102/
8 Mile Road; and the portion north of 8 Mile was named Northwestern Highway . While the service drives retain the existing names, the freeway itself has come to be referred to as the Lodge for its entire length.
Northwestern Highway portion
The portion of M-10 from "The Mixing Bowl" until its terminus with Orchard Lake Rd and Fourteen Mile Rd is known as Northwestern Highway. It was designed as a scenic divided four to six-lane sloping highway with a wide tree lined center median. Travelling Southbound down the hills gives a scenic views of distant downtown Detroit contrasted with the surrounding woodland area. Unfortunately, the build up of office and medical buildings on Northwestern has lessened the experience over the years.
During the 1950s, this highway was proposed to be extended as far as the Fenton-Clio Expressway at Fenton, but was cancelled when
I-75 was, instead, routed between Detroit and Flint via
Pontiac. A Northwestern Highway extension was again proposed in the late 1960s to connect with the proposed
I-275 extension. When the I-275 project was cancelled in the late-1970s, the Northwestern extension was ostensibly cancelled as well, although a dispute between the Road Commission for Oakland County and the Michigan Department of Transportation lasted through the 1990s. Due to the continuing development of the land along the proposed right-of-way , the Northwestern extension will likely never be built as planned.
Up until the Lodge was stripped of its US-10 designation, this portion of modern-day M-10 was designated as
M-4.
Previous incarnations of M-10
The Lodge Freeway is the third distinct iteration of the M-10 designation since Michigan first posted its highway designations in 1918. Note: All incarnations of M-10 also had parts designated as US-10 at one time.
First iteration
The first iteration of M-10 utilized the present-day segments of these following highways;
US-24, M-13,
US-23 and M-33 . This first iteration of M-10 also coincided with the
Dixie Highway in much of its length.
Second iteration
The second iteration of M-10 was, technically, the much-reduced remnant of the original, first iteration of the route in the
Flint area, serving as a business connection for the city as the through route, US-10, bypassed it on the east. This second M-10 iteration was later re-designated as Business US-10, then as
Business M-54 in the 1960s before being turned back to local control in the 1980s.
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