MDOT - Transportation Timeline

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Transportation Timeline

Horatio Earle became Michigan's first Highway Commissioner in 1905. Highway Department links the Upper and Lower peninsulas with state-owned ferry service at the Straits of Mackinac in 1923. The nation's first centerline painted on River Road near Trenton in 1911. International Bridge opens in 1962, linking the twin cities of Sault Ste. Marie in Michigan and Ontario Nation's largest concrete segmental bridge opens, the Zilwaukee Bridge carrying I-75 over the Saginaw River. U.S. DOT names Woodward Avenue - Detroit's main drag - as a National Byway.


1900s	1910s	1920s	1930s	1940s	1950s	1960s	1970s	1980s	1990s	2000s

The nation's first centerline painted on River Road near Trenton in 1911.

The first state-owned roadside park opens on M-43, east of East Lansing

The five-mile-long Mackinac Bridge opens to traffic in 1957, linking Michigan's two peninsulas. '

MDOT develops nation's largest vanpool program for public employees--1977-80.

MDOT establishes the first Web site hosted by a state agency in 1995.