M-5 (Michigan highway)
Encyclopedia
M-5 is a 21 miles highway in the metro Detroit
Metro Detroit
The Detroit metropolitan area, often referred to as Metro Detroit, is the metropolitan area located in Southeast Michigan centered on the city of Detroit which shares an international border with Windsor, Ontario. The Detroit metropolitan area is the second largest U.S. metropolitan area...

 area of the US state of Michigan
Michigan
Michigan is a U.S. state located in the Great Lakes Region of the United States of America. The name Michigan is the French form of the Ojibwa word mishigamaa, meaning "large water" or "large lake"....

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Route description

M-5's eastern terminus is at the junction of Grand River Avenue
Grand River Avenue
US Highway 16 , also called Grand River Avenue for much of its length, is one of the principal pre-Interstate roads in the state of Michigan. Before the creation of the United States Numbered Highway System in 1926, the highway had been designated M-16...

 and Interstate 96
Interstate 96
Interstate 96 is an intrastate Interstate Highway that is entirely within the US state of Michigan. Its western terminus is at an interchange with US Highway 31 and Business US Highway 31 , on the western boundary of Norton Shores southeast of Muskegon. Its eastern terminus is at I-75 near the...

 in western Detroit (I-96 exit 185). M-5's northern terminus is at its junction with Pontiac Trail in Commerce Township
Commerce Township, Michigan
Commerce Charter Township is a charter township of Oakland County, in the U.S. state of Michigan. The population was 40,186 at the 2010 census. The terrain is rolling hills, but there are large expanses of flat land on which farms and, more recently, subdivisions are built. The Huron River runs...

, a rapidly-developing area of Oakland County
Oakland County, Michigan
-Demographics:As of the 2010 Census, there were 1,202,362 people, 471,115 households, and 315,175 families residing in the county. The population density as of the 2000 census was 1,369 people per square mile . There were 492,006 housing units at an average density of 564 per square mile...

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History

From 1926 until 1939, M-5 was used as the designation along what is now M-129
M-129 (Michigan highway)
M-129 is a state trunkline highway in the Upper Peninsula of the US state of Michigan. It runs from Cedarville to Sault Ste. Marie. South of Nine Mile Road in Chippewa County , M-129 overlays the Michigan Meridian. The section of M-129 that overlays the meridian is named Meridian Road...

. Single digit designations are removed at this time, reserved for a future "superhighway" system that later became Michigan's Interstates.

Before M-5

Originally constructed as part of old US 16 (and later I-96), the Brighton-Farmington Expressway ran from U.S. 23 near Brighton
Brighton, Michigan
Brighton is a principal satellite city of Metro Detroit located in the southeast portion of Livingston County in the U.S. state of Michigan. As of the 2010 census, the city population was 7,444. Brighton forms part of the South Lyon-Howell-Brighton Urban Area...

 parallel to Grand River Avenue, following an existing southern bypass of Farmington
Farmington, Michigan
Farmington is a city in Oakland County of the U.S. state of Michigan. It is a northern suburb of Detroit and is part of the Metro Detroit area. As of the 2010 census, the city population was 10,372. It is fully surrounded by Farmington Hills, except for a small portion bordered by Livonia to the...

 to a junction with Grand River west of Middle Belt Road. Initial plans called to extend I-96 to downtown Detroit along Grand River Avenue, which was given the designation Business Spur I-96. These plans were scrapped due to the level of development along Grand River, and I-96 would be rerouted to the south.

M-5 emerges along Grand River Avenue

When I-96 was completed in 1977, the Business Spur I-96 designation was removed from Grand River Avenue. Rather than revert to its original c.1917 designation of M-16, the Michigan Department of Transportation
Michigan Department of Transportation
The Michigan Department of Transportation is a constitutional government agency in the US state of Michigan. The primary purpose of MDOT is to maintain the Michigan State Trunkline Highway System which includes all Interstate, US and state highways in Michigan with the exception of the Mackinac...

 selected M-5 as the new route designation, following a trend established in 1970 and 1973, when odd single-digit routes M-1
M-1 (Michigan highway)
M-1, commonly known as Woodward Avenue, named for Augustus B. Woodward, is a north–south state trunkline in the US state of Michigan. Until a few years ago, the northern terminus of M-1 was at BL I-75 and BUS US 24 in Bloomfield Township between the city limits of Bloomfield Hills and...

 and M-3
M-3 (Michigan highway)
M-3 is a north–south state highway in the US state of Michigan in the Detroit metropolitan area. For most of its length, M-3 is known as Gratiot Avenue...

 were designated along Woodward Avenue (formerly U.S. 10
U.S. Route 10
U.S. Route 10 is an east–west United States highway formed in 1926. Though it never became the cross-country highway suggested by the "0" as the last digit of its route number, U.S...

) and Gratiot Avenue (U.S. 25
U.S. Route 25
U.S. Route 25 is a north–south United States highway that runs for from Brunswick, Georgia to the Ohio state line in Covington, Kentucky.-Georgia:...

), respectively. Grand River was signed as M-5 between 8 Mile Road and its present eastern terminus at I-96 while leaving Grand River Avenue southeast of I-96 an unsigned state trunkline. Both the portion of BS I-96 north of 8 Mile Road and the stub of I-96 that continued out to I-275
Interstate 275 (Michigan)
Interstate 275 in the US state of Michigan is an Interstate Highway that functions as a western bypass of the Detroit metropolitan area. The Michigan Department of Transportation maintains it as a component of the larger state trunkline highway system. The freeway runs through the western suburbs...

 became part of M-102
M-102 (Michigan highway)
M-102 is a state trunkline in the US state of Michigan, running along the northern boundary of Detroit. It is known as 8 Mile Road for most of its length. As part of the land surveying of the state, the road follows the Michigan Baseline, and it is called Base Line Road in places. M-102 is the...

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M-5 Freeway and the Haggerty Extension

In 1994, the first leg of the Haggerty Extension, an expressway built on the right-of-way of the proposed northern leg of I-275, was completed to 12 Mile Road. At this time, M-DOT chose to extend M-5 northwesterly beyond 8 Mile Road, replacing the M-102 designation along the former segment of the Brighton-Farmington freeway.

Over the next eight years, M-5 was extended as far north as Pontiac Trail in Commerce Township
Commerce Township, Michigan
Commerce Charter Township is a charter township of Oakland County, in the U.S. state of Michigan. The population was 40,186 at the 2010 census. The terrain is rolling hills, but there are large expanses of flat land on which farms and, more recently, subdivisions are built. The Huron River runs...

. It is highly unlikely that any new highway will be constructed in the near future. Local residents have long opposed extension of I-275 to its proposed connection with I-75
Interstate 75
Interstate 75 is a major north–south Interstate Highway in the Great Lakes and Southeastern regions of the United States. It travels from State Road 826 and State Road 924 in Hialeah, Florida to Sault Ste. Marie, Michigan, at the Ontario, Canada, border...

 in Clarkston
Clarkston, Michigan
Clarkston, known officially by the name City of the Village of Clarkston, is a small city located within Independence Charter Township in Oakland County in the U.S. state of Michigan. The population was 882 at the 2010 census.-Overview:...

, because of the many lakes and parklands that would be adversely affected by the construction of such a freeway, and residents also fear a drop in property values. While the residents of these communities continue to maintain a strong stance against freeway construction, the area itself has already begun to be affected by urban sprawl
Urban sprawl
Urban sprawl, also known as suburban sprawl, is a multifaceted concept, which includes the spreading outwards of a city and its suburbs to its outskirts to low-density and auto-dependent development on rural land, high segregation of uses Urban sprawl, also known as suburban sprawl, is a...

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