Michigan’s Phantom Highway: The M-45 Sign Error That Fooled Drivers for Decades

Many West Michigan drivers will recognize M-45 as Lake Michigan Drive, the highway that runs from near Downtown Grand Rapids through Standale, Allendale and the campus of Grand Valley State University and west to the coast.

What few remember or realize is that the highway was incorrectly signed within the city of Grand Rapids for over 25 years.

Here's what happened.

M-45 was once a longer roadway. Today is ends at its junction with I-196 near where Fulton Street and Lake Michigan Drive merge.

That was not always the case. M-45 once ran from the Lowell area to the lakeshore. In the early 1970s, the highway was truncated back to downtown Grand Rapids. And that's where the interesting bit of a lingering M-45 comes in.

In 1994, according to the Michigan Highways website, M-45 was shortened to its current length when the portion of Fulton Street from downtown Grand Rapids to I-196 was turned over to local control.

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However, some of the road signs indicating that Fulton Street was still M-45 lingered for decades after the change was made.

Here's how the off-ramp from I-196 eastbound at Lake Michigan Drive appeared as late as 2018 indicating that East M-45 curved to the right. This is in place 24 years after the highway was decommissioned.

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Further, drivers on M-45 still saw that the highway continued onto Fulton into the late 2010s, again after the highway was eliminated in 1994.

These incorrect signs have finally be removed and M-45 is now correctly signed as ending where it properly does at I-196.