I was speaking to a friend recently. They said they lived not far from the 9 Mile Road near Detroit. Of course this put me in mind of the film called " 8 Mile". I asked if there were roads numbering down to 1, and was told yes.
Then I asked, 9 miles from what? What is the locating point? And, if the point is say, the middle of city hall or somesuch, and 9 mile road runs straight, then how can 9 mile road be 9 miles from that point, aside from at ONE specific measured spot? Anywhere else along the 9 mile road, you’re not really 9 miles from the locating point.
Are the roads a series of rings around Detroit? Or, are they relatively straight? What’s the central point from which these names are derived?
It’s they are roads running parallel to Michigan Ave (which runs east-west) and indicates how many miles north they are from Woodward and Michigan Ave (which is downtown).
Some of the roads retain their “X-mile” label for their duration, but many change names according to where they are. Big Beaver in Troy becomes Quarton in Bloomfield Hills, but I think both are really 16 mile and might be called "16 mile) at some point. Maple is 14 mile (I think–I wish my husband the native were home).
Soon after moved to the Detroit area last year, I asked this question of one of my co-workers. She told me that the reference point was the distance from the Detroit River, which separates the city (and the southeastern portion of Michigan) from Canada.
They’re not arranged in a series of rings, but rather run east-west, typically in a straight line. 8 Mile Road marks the boundry between Detroit and the northern suburbs.
I live a stone’s throw from Maple, and it’s a separate street from 14 Mile Road. Maple is the next street you hit after crossing 14 Mile Road, heading north. (In my part of the neighborhood, at least.)
I admit to snickering at the name of the next street north after Maple, which was Big Beaver Road. Then I had a good holler when I discovered what the exit number was to get off of Southbound I-75 onto Big Beaver. Some civic planner was having some fun.
Many places in the midwest have roads with similar designations. They are generally aligned along the civil township grids, thus one mile apart from each other. In one particular township I recall, the initial township grid line was called baseline road, with one, two, three, four etc mile roads after.
If the civil township was a standard one, they generally ended at 6 mile road, as the standard township was 6 miles square. But if it was a nonstandard (i.e. wider) township, the numbers could go on. And if the baseline road represented a significant landmark (community, etc), other townships often adopted the “x mile” designation
QtM
(who lived between 6 and 7 mile road outside of Detroit back in the 60’s)
For the record, Atreyu is referring to the fact the Big Beaver Rd. is exit number 69.
All of the signs prominently say “Big Beaver” but it’s common referred to at “16 Mile.” Going east, it becomes “Metro(politan) Parkway,” also commonly referred to as “16 Mile.”
I’m a native, but have no idea where the origin is. I don’t get into the “hood,” but from the freeway the lowest I’ve ever seen is “6 Mile Rd.” I regularly see as high as “33 Mile” and I may have seen a “37 Mile” but we’re in the sticks now.
The east side of 8 Mile serves as the dividing line between the city proper and the suburbs. Yeah, it’s really a difference like night and day.
The zero line is Michigan Avenue (east of I-94) and Ford Road (west of I-94).
The lower-numbered roads have names that don’t fit the X-Mile pattern. Warren Avenue is the street that would be 1 Mile. 2, 3, and 4 are named Joy Rd, Plymouth Rd, and Schoolcraft Rd. Starting at 5 Mile, most of the major roads are named according the Mile System, altho’ a couple of the higher-numbered ones have other names. Macomb County calls 16 Mile “Metro Parkway”. In Oakland County, the city of Troy calls it Big Beaver Rd, and Bloomfield Hills calls it Quarton Rd.
8 Mile forms the northern border of Detroit (and Wayne County).
The Mile System goes at least as far as 32 Mile Rd., but by then you’re way out in the boondocks.
(I live in Farmington Hills, between 8 and 9 Mile.)
Just to be confusing, in the Detroit area, 8 Mile IS Baseline Road. Why they aligned the townships from 8 Mile but counted the mile roads from Michigan Ave, I haven’t the slightest idea.
I live off of 8 Mile. [tangent] Lotta neighborhoods here keep getting their street signs stolen, presumably by wanna-be tough-guy movie fans. A common solution has been to remove the gritty cachet by putting the name of the city or township at the top of the sign and adding frou-frou flourishes. It generally seems to be working. [/tangent]
So, to clarify for the boy who grew up in a city whose grid-like layout was the first in the Colonies, allow me to make sure I got the skinny.
You count in a straight line outwards from Woodward and Michigan Avenues. Each miles gets its proper name. And, it is irrelevant how far OFF tangentially you go from the , let’s say, 23 Mile Road where it might intersect with the point of origin in a grid layout- you’re still on the 23 Mile Road.
Good enough. Thank you !
Philly was easy. You look up Broad Street, there’s a gargantual glowing blue B floating in the air in front of you. Kind of hard to miss the fact that you were on Broad Street ( at least, North Broad. South Broad, you had to follow signs for the Spectrum to know where you were. )
This all makes more sense that having to look for 366,901,872 Muhlholland Drive.
Cartooniverse
p.s. that big glowing blue B is gone now, sadly. It explains the confused dazed look one sees on the faces of Philadelphians…
I have heard that it is 8 miles from Cadillac Square (Woodward and Michigan), measured up Woodward. This could be verified by a strident young Doper and Mapquest…
And Balthisar, exit 169, just past the Zilwaukee Bridge, is Beaver Road. Conspiracy?
First of all, it certainly isn’t the Detroit River, which doesn’t run N-S or E-W, but rather on a curve from a WSW flow to a SSW flow. As it runs past downtown Detroit, it is flowing from a little East of NE to a little W of SW. The grid of streets in the central part of Detroit takes its orientation roughly off the flow of the river.
Woodward Road also plays no part, because it runs to the NW from its intersection in downtown Detroit with Michigan Ave. As the various "Mile Rd"s run parallel E-W and are a mile apart, you don’t measure distance out from downtown on Woodward with them.
You do, however, measure miles north of Michigan Ave. This road maintains its W-E direction all the way into the center of downtown, the only road to so do.
For the "Mile Rd"s beginning with 7 Mile Rd., which appears to be the first such to retain its numerical designation directly north of downtown, the dividing line between E and W designation is a street called “John R St” on the map at which I am looking. This road runs N-S outside of the “downtown” grid; it then bends and runs into downtown as part of the parallel diagonal grid, one street to the NE from Woodward. However, in the diagonally gridded streets, it appears the E/W numerical dividing line is Woodward Ave. itself.
To the West, 8 Mile Rd. through 12 Mile Rd. appear to peter out in Washtenaw or Livingston Counties, roughly 30 miles to the West of the dividing line of John R St.
On the East, of course, the shores of Lake St. Clair limit the extent of the “Mile” roads.
Sorta. Michigan Avenue starts downdown and heads west until it reaches I-94. At this point, it veers off to the southwest. Ford Road braches off from Michigan Avenue at this point and heads west on about the same line that Michigan Ave was on before it curved. Ford Road goes out to Washtenaw County, and peters out around Ann Arbor. It appears to be roughly 30 miles long on Mapquest. Michigan Avenue eventually becomes Route 12 and appears to run all the way to Chicago.
Just to add to the pedantry: Michigan Ave does not run true East-West, but angles slightly north of west out to Lumley (between Springwells and Elmer) before angling southwest to head for Chicago, IL. Ford Road, to which Michigan Ave never connected (as confirmed by my 1943, pre-expressway map), is the true 0 mile road, beginning at Wyoming, just east of Weir, where McGraw (following the “river” parallel south of west, bends to head due west).
The “mile” roads are parallels and do not derive from a point. The city of Detroit generally follows the earliest French platting with its ribbon farms extending off the river to the north-north-west, but the surrounding areas were all mapped according to the Northwest Ordinance of 1787 using township grids of six mile by six mile squares oriented on N-S and E-W lines. The “mile” roads were built off the township grids rather than from the city streets.
Baseline was set for the development of the Lower Peninsula, with the 0 - 0 mark a bit south of Lansing (picked to be the center of the inhabited part of the state). It is somewhat of a coincidence that 8 Mile Rd runs along the base line. (It is not purely coincidence since the base line was used to set boundaries for the counties of Wayne, Oakland, Macomb and the others to the west, thus defining Detroit’s farthest available northern boundary in Wayne County.)
Very interesting… but here’s a challenge. Does anyone know what the baseline road is for the “mile roads” on the east side of Cincinnati? (I only remember two mile roads… Five Mile and Eight Mile. I lived off of Five Mile. Neither runs straight north-south, they’re both rather curvy.)
The baseline used in the survey of Michigan lands runs along 8 Mile Road, which is approximately eight miles directly north of the junction of Woodward Avenue and Michigan Avenue in downtown Detroit. As a result, the direct east–west portion of Michigan Avenue, and M-153 (Ford Road) west of Wyoming Avenue, forms the “zero mile” baseline for this mile road system.
The precise point of origin is located in Campus Martius Park, marked by a medallion[6] embedded in the stone walkway. It is situated in the western point of the diamond surrounding Woodward Fountain,[7] just in front of the Fountain Bistro.
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