What's Wrong With Detroit's Strange Highway System?

Detroit is one of America's most fascinating cities and metropolitan areas. Nowhere else do you see a historic city so tied between its extremely economic past and its much less exciting present. Looking at my entirely made up Detroit Coolness Meter, it peaked in about the 1940s when they were producing cars up the wazoo and were one of the biggest cities in America. But it quickly declined, moving towards its lowest point, which I would say might be 1990 into the 2000s. That would be the Detroit most people think about today. But it seems we're actually on a bit of an upswing, moving towards a promising future. So because of its location right here, it presents us with a good opportunity to cover it in a video. And since it's Beaver Geography, we're talking about the highway system. Why is this boulevard so wide? Why is this interchange such a mess? Why is there a tunnel here? Let's answer all of these questions today. Before we get into that though, consider subscribing to the channel. We make geography content like this every single week. So if you're interested, I would really appreciate it, as it helps me out in growing the channel. Thank you! So zooming out and looking at the city, this is a freeway mess, officially speaking. There's just a lot going on, and this leads you to the entire idea of this metropolitan area. It was built for the 1950s and 60s Detroit, not the 2026 Detroit. What I mean by this is that it's very overbuilt. It doesn't have some modern suburban beltways or anything. Instead, it has several different routes. For the major interstates, we have I-75 coming in from the south and into the north. And then we have I-94 going through east-west and heading up to Port Huron. Finally, I-96 from the straight west, which will take you to Lansing. Next we have our spur routes. I-696 is one of the most chaotic highways you'll ever see up in the north. I-275 goes north to south. And you see together those form what you would call Detroit's beltway, I guess. Then downtown we have the ugliest freeway ever, I-375. Which is going to be disappearing very soon. I'll talk about that later. As far as other highways go, we have the Southfield Freeway, which is just a big straight line. And it's only kind of a freeway. And then you have State Route 10, which is just I-75 light. And with that, we have Detroit's not-so-pretty map of freeways. So I guess that means I should start by zooming in on a road completely unmentioned this entire time, which is 8 Mile Road. You may know this road from Eminem. The famous rapper is from Detroit, and 8 Mile Road is of great significance, being the name of the movie he's in. But when it comes to geography, it's definitely more interesting than just that. Michigan uses mile road systems in several different places, like Bay County, for example. And this is because of their use of the Public Land Survey System, which laid out mile-by-mile roadways. Since they're so boring, they simply named their roads after that. If you move far enough up, you find 37 Mile Road. I bet you can't guess how far from the downtown that is. Then there's 36 Mile Road, 35 Mile Road, and so on as you move south. This all culminates at Campus Marshes Park in the center of downtown, and it gives you actually a great sense of location within the metropolitan area. But with that being said, 8 Mile Road turned into the most major mile road simply because of its location and use as a major divide. It's the northern border of the city of Detroit. It's the northern border of Wayne County. And it also marks a quick divide between economics and demographics, moving into the suburbs. Let's zoom in and take a look. The actual road is 6 to 8 lanes, with like a 50-foot median, which is very large. It's a major, major arterial route, and it's also fairly infamous for the high amount of strange businesses along it. Giving you an example of what I actually mean by that, four different strip clubs operate along the road, which was my cue that on-the-ground reporting probably wasn't the play for this video. So why is the median 50 feet wide? Well, that's because of the Michigan left turn. You want to turn left at an intersection? Tough luck. Instead, you take a right and then rip a U-ey on one of these turnarounds. This eliminates turns across traffic, helping with safety. It's used in several states, but Michigan has it just about the most, with several roads in the metro using the concept. Major examples include Woodward Avenue, Van Dyke Avenue, Mound Road, and many more. Is this an efficient use of land? Eh, who really knows. It's a lot of right-of-way, but we'll let them keep doing what they're doing without saying anything. Now from here, we just get to go through the best that Detroit has to offer. Like Interstate 696, known as the American Autobahn. It gained this recognition because it's known for extremely fast drivers and very little law enforcement. And this gets accentuated by the frequent turns. There's plenty of 45-degree turns, 90-degree turns, and just overall tight shifts for a freeway this speed limit. The planning process for this was notorious because it went through so many municipalities, and I really, really mean that. Some, like Lathrop Village, for example, were higher income, and they didn't really want a freeway. So trying to plan around that and through it was just a pain. One result of this would be the tunnel right here. It's adjacent to a Jewish school and community, and it was used as a chip to convince the group to approve such a massive highway. It gives them connection to a nature preserve on the other side, without trying to get over a massive, terrifying freeway. Which is reasonable, I guess. Finally, two other things come from this interstate. The first is the Mixing Bowl Interchange, an iconically disgusting piece of work. I-696 meets State Route 10 in US-24, and they decided to go for whatever this is. If you want to go from State Highway 10 northbound to I-696 eastbound, you'd have to do this. So have fun with that. Over to the west, at the end of I-696, is this, the Novi Interchange. One of, if not the largest, interchanges in the country by just combined right-of-way area. You could fit, like, a few neighborhoods in here, at a whopping 838 acres. It's pretty wild stuff. But get this, when I made a video about I-696, and called it the American Autobahn, commenters let me know that the Southfield Freeway is actually worse when it comes to speeding problems. Apparently, just going in a straight line is a recipe for disaster, as it shows a shocking resemblance to your average drag strip. While looking through this for a video, I found this mess of an interchange. Is there any way to use more concrete in a smaller area than what is happening here? This is diabolical. While we're farther outside of town too, let's look at a cancelled freeway, my topic of interest in life. I-275 was actually meant to stretch much farther north, likely up to I-75 north of Pontiac. And the problem here was the land in between this. This is extremely upper class, with lakes all over, which the highway would have to cut through. Because of this, there were issues with the people that live there, and there were also environmental issues, which is to be expected with a freeway of this nature. So what if they built a parkway? The idea turned the highway a bit more green, and hopefully people would like it, but that just wasn't enough. The concept disappeared, so now the highway, now State Route 5, simply ends at a roundabout. Finally, let's move downtown, where Detroit is not dead yet. There's actually new development happening here. First is I-395, which they are fully getting rid of. The highway cuts through downtown, and when it was built, it disconnected the Black Bottom neighborhood, which was an important cultural hub. So the thought is to remove it and replace it with a massive boulevard. They're in the process of doing this right now, and I find the concept very important, as they work to undo the worst of the 50s and 60s designing. But I will say the concept pictures still show it being not so pedestrian friendly, something that simply has to be considered when you're trying to fix mistakes like this. But yeah, downtown will look very different very soon. Finally, I wanted to touch on how important Detroit is as an international city. I don't think it's considered enough, but this is a hub for accessing eastern Canada, and there are two major crossings currently operating. But some exciting news in Detroit's highway system is happening very soon. The Gordie Howe Bridge, the newest of the three, will actually open to public traffic at 12pm on July 27, 2026. That's just two days after this video plans to be uploaded. This will provide an important and updated connection to Windsor, Ontario, and in turn over to places like London and Toronto. It's an integral part of Detroit's economy present day. With that all being said, the thing here is to always remember that the highway system is a result of the city's history. The freeway removal of I-375, the difficult development of I-696, and the cancelled I-275. These came about because Detroit was once a great, important city, and it was built to support those 1.8 million residents in the city proper. Instead, it's working with 649,000 in the city proper, and 4.4 million total in the entire metro. It's a fascinating suburban concept and shift. Thanks for watching. Thank you so much to the members this week, I appreciate you guys so much. 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