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Routing
Interstate 675 provides the business route into Saginaw from Interstate 75. Interstate 675 was built as a way to get around a drawbridge. On Interstate 75, between the two termini of Interstate 675, there used to be a drawbridge where Interstate 75 crossed the Saginaw River. Interstate 675 was built, in part, as a way to avoid this drawbridge, particularly for people driving to and from northern Michigan from metro Detroit. The drawbridge was eventually replaced by the fixed span Zilwaukee Bridge (known locally as the Z-Bridge). Thanks to Geoff Hatchard for this information.
Zilwaukee Bridge
Don Hargraves adds more information about the Zilwaukee Bridge:
- The old Zilwaukee bridge was well known as a bottleneck for a few reasons. One of them was that it was a drawbridge, another was that for many years I-75 was 6-laned from Flint to just below the Zilwaukee bridge, where it shrank down to four lanes for the bridge. After that, it went back to six lanes to north of Bay City.
- The reason the old Zilwaukee bridge was a drawbridge was because of a General Motors plant on the Saginaw side of the bridge that used the river for steel shipments. At the time the Zilwaukee bridge was being replaced by the present structure, General Motors stopped using the river for steel shipments.
- There was a mini-disaster with one of the pylons that held the bridge up above the river during construction. The bridge is okay now, but for years after the new bridge opened you saw bumper stickers that said "I drove over the Zilwaukee Bridge AND LIVED!"
- The new Zilwaukee Bridge is eight lanes wide. A bit wide, but better too wide than too narrow (as the drawbridge was).
Mileage
| State
| Mileage
| Cities
| Junctions
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| Michigan
| 7.72
| Saginaw
| Interstate 75, Interstate 75
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| Source: October 31, 2002 Interstate Route Log and Finders List |
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