Michigan's First Tri-level Intersection

During the 1950s, as Oakland County's population soared, the corner of Eight Mile Road and Woodward Avenue became the most congested crossroad in Michigan. The solution, envisioned in a plan created by Detroit and its surrounding counties in the 1920s, was the Eight Mile-Woodward tri-level intersection. Built in 1956-57, it used two levels for the Woodward Avenue and Eight Mile "superhighways" and one for the local access intersection. Woodward Avenue originated in Augustus B. Woodward's 1805 plan, which had major arteries radiating from Detroit's core. Running north to Pontiac, Woodward separates the east and west sides of Detroit. Eight Mile became the symbolic line separating the city and the suburbs.