Hastings-Battle Creek Expressway

The Hastings-Battle Creek Expressway is a freeway proposal that dates back to the late 1960's. This proposal had lots of opposition and many speculate that that would be the reason for the cancellation.

The report proposed a right-of-way width to accommodate a fully-controlled freeway, with only the southbound lanes to be constructed initially. Some of the cross-roads would have been closed initially, some would have been at-grade crossings. If built, the early version would have looked much like M-37 between Sparta and Casnovia. Of the 22.4 miles of new highway proposed, only about 3–1/2 miles were actually built.

At the extreme north end, about 1.5 miles of M-37/M-43 from the current junction in the center of Hastings west to Heath Road was constructed in the very early '70s. This replaced the Green Street routing west of Broadway in Hastings, a mostly residential street not well suited to a busy duplexed trunkline.

At the extreme south end, about 2 miles of the proposed road became M-96 (Dickman Road) through Fort Custer, from about the Calhoun-Kalamazoo county line east to its terminus at Business Loop I-94. This section is well described in the M-96 listing.

Apparently both upgrades were done on their own merits, and not in the context of the 1968 proposal. However, the relocation west of Hastings included what would have been the freeway interchange. Enough limited access right of way was acquired to have the east-west trunkline be a fully divided boulevard through the freeway interchange. Only the (proposed) westbound lanes were actually built. It was only about 10 years ago that MDOT finally concluded the freeway interchange would never happen. The "excess right-of-way" (for the eastbound lanes) was sold to Rutland Charter Township for pennies. They get offers of huge dollars every year, and thus far have declined all of them. The Walmart store had to buy the access rights from MDOT to breach the previous limited access line for their driveway.

External Links

• M-37: Hastings-Battle Creek Freeway-Expressway at Michigan Highways.