opened to traffic, including all 395 miles of the longest freeway in the state—I-75 from the Ohio border north to Sault Ste. Marie.
The number of automobiles registered in Michigan stood at a record 5.2 million at the end of the decade and trucks numbered more than a million. Travel mileage peaked at 67.4 billion in 1978, then dropped slightly, primarily because of higher fuel prices and a declining economy.
Highway development slowed as it became more complex, the result of federal requirements for more extensive environmental impact assessments, more public participation in decision-making and other additional steps in the preconstruction process.
In 1977, with inflation driving up costs and older freeways and other major highways increasingly in need of rehabilitation, the commission made a far-reaching policy decision. It revised its plan for highway development to shift emphasis from new highways to management of the existing system as a primary objective.
Sixty-five airplanes re-enacted the historic first air tour of Michigan in 1929 to mark the 50th anniversary of the Michigan Aeronautics Commission. Here, Ludington area residents inspect the visiting fleet in the spring of 1979.
The year-by-year need for extra dollars for roads and transportation was met in 1978 with a legislative act informally known as "Transpack." It was an abbreviated nametag for a collection of highway laws and a constitutional amendment that put the department solidly in the business of moving people as well as vehicles.
This prize-winning section of M-28 along the shore of Lake Superior typifies Department efforts to upgrade existing highways as well as to build new ones.
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