A-2 is a
county-designated highway in the US state of
Michigan
Michigan () is a state in the Great Lakes region of the upper Midwestern United States. With a population of nearly 10.12 million and an area of nearly , Michigan is the 10th-largest state by population, the 11th-largest by area, and the ...
running about along the shores of
Lake Michigan
Lake Michigan is one of the five Great Lakes of North America. It is the second-largest of the Great Lakes by volume () and the third-largest by surface area (), after Lake Superior and Lake Huron. To the east, its basin is conjoined with that o ...
in the southwestern part of the
Lower Peninsula
The Lower Peninsula of Michigan – also known as Lower Michigan – is the larger, southern and less elevated of the two major landmasses that make up the U.S. state of Michigan; the other being the Upper Peninsula, which is separated by the S ...
. The county highway starts near the town of
Lake Michigan Beach in
Berrien County at an intersection with
M-63 and follows Blue Star Highway through rural coastal areas. Running roughly parallel to its modern freeway replacement,
Interstate 196
Interstate 196 (I-196) is an auxiliary Interstate Highway that runs for in the US state of Michigan. It is a state trunkline highway that links Benton Harbor, South Haven, Holland, and Grand Rapids. In Kent, Ottawa, and Allegan counties, I-1 ...
(I-196), A-2 passes through the cities of
South Haven and
Saugatuck before ending at an interchange with
Business Loop Interstate 196/
US Highway 31 (BL I-196/US 31) in
Holland
Holland is a geographical regionG. Geerts & H. Heestermans, 1981, ''Groot Woordenboek der Nederlandse Taal. Deel I'', Van Dale Lexicografie, Utrecht, p 1105 and former province on the western coast of the Netherlands. From the 10th to the 16th c ...
.
In the early part of the 20th century, what is now Blue Star Highway was part of two
auto trail
The system of auto trails was an informal network of marked routes that existed in the United States and Canada in the early part of the 20th century. Marked with colored bands on utility poles, the trails were intended to help travellers in ...
s before becoming a
state trunkline highway. In 1926, it was designated as a part of US 31 and kept that status until I-196 bypassed the roadway in the early 1960s. Two local business owners spurred the efforts to get the older highway restored to the state highway map in 1970, and the A-2 designation was created as a result.
Route description
A-2 starts at an intersection with
M-63 about west of the
I-196/
US 31 freeway in
Lake Michigan Beach. From this intersection, the county highway runs northward through forest between
Lake Michigan
Lake Michigan is one of the five Great Lakes of North America. It is the second-largest of the Great Lakes by volume () and the third-largest by surface area (), after Lake Superior and Lake Huron. To the east, its basin is conjoined with that o ...
and the freeway in northern
Berrien County. A-2 crosses into
Van Buren County about a mile (1.6 km) later and continues winding north-northeasterly. At various locations, local roads connect the county road to interchanges with the freeway as the two run roughly parallel together. Blue Star Highway passes the
Palisades Nuclear Generating Station
The Palisades Nuclear Generating Station was a nuclear power plant located on Lake Michigan, in Van Buren County's Covert Township, Michigan, on a site south of South Haven, Michigan, USA. Palisades was owned and operated by Entergy. It had ...
near
Covert
Secrecy is the practice of hiding information from certain individuals or groups who do not have the "need to know", perhaps while sharing it with other individuals. That which is kept hidden is known as the secret.
Secrecy is often controvers ...
before coming into the southern edge of
South Haven.
In South Haven, A-2 bypasses downtown, rounding the district to the south and east. The county road intersects
BL I-196 at Le Grange Street due south of downtown and
M-43 a block later. In this area, Blue Star Highway is bounded by a mix of mostly commercial and some residential properties. On the north side of the city, A-2 intersects BL I-196 a second time at Phoenix Street and then continues due north out of town, crossing the
Black River. The landscape transitions over to a rural forest area with residential properties as A-2 continues across the county line into
Allegan County
Allegan County ( ) is a county in the U.S. state of Michigan. As of the 2020 United States Census, the population was 120,502. The county seat is Allegan. The name was coined by Henry Rowe Schoolcraft to sound like a Native American word.
Alle ...
and passes the South Haven Country Club and some vineyards.
[
]
A-2 turns northeasterly near Glenn and crosses over I-196/US 31 to run east of the freeway. Blue Star Highway here follows 68th Street in the county road grid through the community of Ganges
The Ganges ( ) (in India: Ganga ( ); in Bangladesh: Padma ( )). "The Ganges Basin, known in India as the Ganga and in Bangladesh as the Padma, is an international river to which India, Bangladesh, Nepal and China are the riparian states." is ...
. North of the community, A-2 intersects M-89 about east of its terminus at I-196/US 31. North of here, the freeway turns to the northeast and crosses under A-2. Blue Star Highway continues due north into Douglas
Douglas may refer to:
People
* Douglas (given name)
* Douglas (surname)
Animals
*Douglas (parrot), macaw that starred as the parrot ''Rosalinda'' in Pippi Longstocking
*Douglas the camel, a camel in the Confederate Army in the American Civil W ...
. In the city, the county road is bounded by businesses as it S-curves northeasterly to cross a narrow spot of Kalamazoo Lake
Kalamazoo Lake is a lake in Allegan County, Michigan. The Kalamazoo River connects Kalamazoo Lake with Lake Michigan, the river flows northwest through Otsego, Allegan and Saugatuck, into Lake Michigan.
Kalamazoo Lake lies at an elevation of s ...
(part of the Kalamazoo River
The Kalamazoo River is a river in the U.S. state of Michigan. The river is long from the junction of its North and South branches to its mouth at Lake Michigan, with a total length extending to when one includes the South Branch.U.S. Geologica ...
) into Saugatuck. A-2 bypasses downtown Saugatuck to its east and continues north and northeasterly out of town. The county road crosses over the freeway again and out to farmlands before turning north along 58th Street, well inland of I-196/US 31.[
From here, A-2 runs due north and crosses I-196 one last time near the south side of the ]West Michigan Regional Airport
West Michigan Regional Airport , formerly ''Tulip City Airport'', is a public-use airport located two nautical miles (3.7 km) south of the central business district of Holland, a city in Ottawa County and Allegan County, Michigan, United S ...
; this crossing has no interchange. The county road passes under the west end of the airport's runway in a tunnel as it meanders along South Washington Avenue to an interchange with BL I-196/US 31 on the south side of the city of Holland
Holland is a geographical regionG. Geerts & H. Heestermans, 1981, ''Groot Woordenboek der Nederlandse Taal. Deel I'', Van Dale Lexicografie, Utrecht, p 1105 and former province on the western coast of the Netherlands. From the 10th to the 16th c ...
where it terminates. South Washington Street continues northward into downtown without the county highway designation.[ As a county-designated highway, the length of A-2 is maintained by the Berrien, Van Buren, and Allegan county road commissions (BCRC, VBCRC, ACRC) in their respective counties.][
]
History
When auto trail
The system of auto trails was an informal network of marked routes that existed in the United States and Canada in the early part of the 20th century. Marked with colored bands on utility poles, the trails were intended to help travellers in ...
s were being developed in the early 20th century, the path of the modern A-2 was used for part of two. The first in 1912 was the West Michigan Pike, which ran from the Indiana
Indiana () is a U.S. state in the Midwestern United States. It is the 38th-largest by area and the 17th-most populous of the 50 States. Its capital and largest city is Indianapolis. Indiana was admitted to the United States as the 19th s ...
state line north to the Straits of Mackinac
The Straits of Mackinac ( ; french: Détroit de Mackinac) are the short waterways between the U.S. state of Michigan's Upper and Lower Peninsulas, traversed by the Mackinac Bridge. The main strait is wide with a maximum depth of , and connects ...
along Lake Michigan
Lake Michigan is one of the five Great Lakes of North America. It is the second-largest of the Great Lakes by volume () and the third-largest by surface area (), after Lake Superior and Lake Huron. To the east, its basin is conjoined with that o ...
. The second was the Western Mainline of the Dixie Highway
Dixie Highway was a United States auto trail first planned in 1914 to connect the Midwest with the South. It was part of a system and was expanded from an earlier Miami to Montreal highway. The final system is better understood as a network of ...
in 1915. The state legislature created the State Trunkline Highway System on May 13, 1913, and in the legislation, Division 5 corresponded to a highway along the western Lower Peninsula near Lake Michigan. Six years later, the system was signposted for the first time, and the original M-11 ran along the former Division 5. In November 1926, the American Association of State Highway Officials
The American Association of State Highway and Transportation Officials (AASHTO) is a standards setting body which publishes specifications, test protocols, and guidelines that are used in highway design and construction throughout the United St ...
approved the United States Numbered Highway System
The United States Numbered Highway System (often called U.S. Routes or U.S. Highways) is an integrated network of roads and highways numbered within a nationwide grid in the contiguous United States. As the designation and numbering of these hi ...
, and the state designated US 31 in Michigan along M-11. During World War II, the state highway department bypassed downtown South Haven, shifting US 31 out of downtown. US 31 was given the Blue Star Highway designation on October 10, 1948.
US 31 between the Benton Harbor
Benton Harbor is a city in Berrien County in the U.S. state of Michigan. It is 46 miles southwest of Kalamazoo and 71 miles southwest of Grand Rapids. According to the 2020 census, its population was 9,103. It is the smaller, by population, of ...
and Holland
Holland is a geographical regionG. Geerts & H. Heestermans, 1981, ''Groot Woordenboek der Nederlandse Taal. Deel I'', Van Dale Lexicografie, Utrecht, p 1105 and former province on the western coast of the Netherlands. From the 10th to the 16th c ...
areas was slated to become an Interstate Highway
The Dwight D. Eisenhower National System of Interstate and Defense Highways, commonly known as the Interstate Highway System, is a network of controlled-access highways that forms part of the National Highway System in the United States. Th ...
when that system debuted in the late 1950s. The first freeway segment in the area opened in 1962 northward from I-94 to near the Berrien– Van Buren county line, and an additional opened the next year from the northern end of the freeway near the county line to Holland as I-196; US 31 was removed from Blue Star Highway to run along the new freeway.
Blue Star Highway was returned to county control, the US 31 highway signs were taken down, and the roadway was removed from the state highway maps with the completion of the freeway in the area. The owners of a motel in Saugatuck, Mr. and Mrs. Howard "Gene" Temple, received a large number of cancellations because travelers could not find their business.[ Mrs. Temple said that signage in the area was misleading,][ and she contacted local officials to get better highway signage for the road. These meetings resulted in a test program for the 1970 state highway map that marked Blue Star Highway as A-2; the Allegan County Road Commission spent $2,000 (equivalent to $ in ) to erect about 50 markers along the road in their county.][ At the time, the scheme was labeled "experimental". Later that year, the system was expanded in scope to the rest of the state.] Mrs. Temple was credited as the first Michigan woman to secure a highway designation from the State Highway Commission.[
The next year in 1971, A-2 was extended south to the junction with US 33 (now M-63) in Lake Michigan Beach.] In 1972, BL I-196 in South Haven was realigned and no longer overlapped A-2.[ The South Washington Avenue section of A-2 on the south side of Holland was realigned in 2004 into a tunnel to make way for an expansion of the runway at Tulip City Airport (now ]West Michigan Regional Airport
West Michigan Regional Airport , formerly ''Tulip City Airport'', is a public-use airport located two nautical miles (3.7 km) south of the central business district of Holland, a city in Ottawa County and Allegan County, Michigan, United S ...
). A roundabout was added at the intersection with North Shore Drive north of South Haven in 2010.
Major intersections
See also
*
References
External links
A-2
at Michigan Highways
{{DEFAULTSORT:A-02
County-designated highways in Michigan
Transportation in Berrien County, Michigan
Transportation in Van Buren County, Michigan
Transportation in Allegan County, Michigan
U.S. Route 31