M-247 is a north–south
state trunkline highway in the US state of
Michigan, connecting
M-13 to the
Bay City Recreation Area, entirely within
Bangor Township. As a state trunkline, M-247 runs north from M-13 before turning to access the park, a distance of . The highway carries just over 6,000 vehicles a day on average. The roadway has been part of the state trunkline highway system since the 1920s, and from 1961 until 1998, it was the highest non-
Interstate highway in the state. Before it was given the M-247 designation, the roadway has been a part of
M-111 M-111 was the designation given to two former state trunklines in the U.S. state of Michigan:
* M-111 (1928 Michigan highway) in the Bay City area
* M-111 (1938 Michigan highway) in Keweenaw County
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and
M-47.
Route description
Starting at its southern terminus at
M-13, M-247 follows Euclid Avenue north about , crossing the
Kawkawlin River
The Kawkawlin River is a U.S. Geological Survey. National Hydrography Dataset high-resolution flowline dataThe National Map , accessed November 7, 2011 stream in the U.S. state of Michigan that flows into Saginaw Bay of Lake Huron at , approximatel ...
. When it meets Beaver Road, M-247 turns east leading directly into the state park and ends at its entrance.
The entire roadway passes through suburban Bay City near the
Saginaw Bay
Saginaw Bay is a bay within Lake Huron located on the eastern side of the U.S. state of Michigan. It forms the space between Michigan's Thumb region and the rest of the Lower Peninsula of Michigan. Saginaw Bay is in area. It is located in part ...
.
None of the highway is listed on the
National Highway System, a system of regionally important highways.
The
Michigan Department of Transportation (MDOT) measures the traffic volumes on its highways using a calculation called
average annual daily traffic (AADT). This value is an expression of the number of vehicles that use a section of roadway on any average day of the year. When the department surveyed M-247 in 2009, the southernmost section near M-13 carried 6,135 vehicles; the remainder carried 6,224 vehicles. As a subset of these figures, 190 commercial vehicles used the trunkline on average. This was an overall increase from 2008 when the sections carried 5,031 and 5,573 vehicles respectively, but a decrease from the 214 commercial vehicles.
History
By 1929, the first highway designation along the current M-247 was assigned. That first number was
M-111 M-111 was the designation given to two former state trunklines in the U.S. state of Michigan:
* M-111 (1928 Michigan highway) in the Bay City area
* M-111 (1938 Michigan highway) in Keweenaw County
{{end box ...
,
which lasted until 1937 when all of M-111 became part of
M-47.
In early 1961, the roadway changed numbers once more. This time M-47 was realigned to a former section of
US Highway 10
U.S. Route 10 or U.S. Highway 10 (US 10) is an east–west United States highway located in the Midwest and Great Lakes regions of the United States. Unlike most U.S. routes with "0" as the last digit of its route number, US 1 ...
(US 10), and the connection to the state park was assigned the M-247 designation.
This was the highest highway number in the state, excluding Interstates, until the 1998 designation of
M-553 in the
Upper Peninsula.
Major intersections
See also
*
References
External links
M-247at Michigan Highways
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247
__NOTOC__
Year 247 (Roman numerals, CCXLVII) was a common year starting on Friday (link will display the full calendar) of the Julian calendar. At the time, it was known as the Year of the Consulship of Philippus and Severus (or, less frequent ...
Transportation in Bay County, Michigan