Portal:Michigan highways/Selected article/May 2017
M-66 is a north–south state trunkline highway on the Lower Peninsula that runs from the Indiana state line in the south to Charlevoix in the north. M-66 is the only state highway to traverse almost the entire north–south distance of the peninsula. It starts as a continuation of State Road 9, which provides access to the Indiana Toll Road. The total length is 272.9 miles (439.2 km), which includes 3.4 miles (5.5 km) of freeway between Interstate 94 (I-94) and downtown Battle Creek designated as I-194. One section of the highway is an expressway, a type of divided limited access highway, while the section along I-194 is a full freeway, otherwise M-66 is a two-lane rural highway. The first usage of the M-66 designation dates back to around July 1, 1919, with the rest of the original state highway system. At the time, the highway only extended between Lowell and Lakeview, a route now covered by M-91. The highway has been lengthened in a series of extensions north and south starting in 1925. A rerouting in 1944–45 removed M-66 from its original 1919 routing to replace another highway south of Six Lakes, the change that spawned M-91. The last big extension in 1965 resulted in the modern trans-peninsular highway route. The last modifications were shorter reroutings in the 1970s. (more...)