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Interstate 69
Interstate 69 is an interstate highway in the midwestern United States. It runs from Indianapolis, Indiana at Interstate 465 (see Interstate 65) to Port Huron, Michigan at Michigan State Highway 25[?].
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- At Lansing, Michigan, I-69 takes a right hand turn and becomes an east-west route. At the intersection with I-94, both Interstates are numbered wrong, as I-94 is going north-south there.
- I-69 comes close to having an intersection with I-65 but it stops at the I-465 spur instead.
- The original southern termination point of I-69 was to have been at the I-65/I-70 interchange on the northeast side of downtown Indianapolis (known locally as the "spaghetti bowl"). In fact, the grading and overpasses for this connection's ramps can still be seen at that location. Later, the State of Indiana changed its mind (so it would not need to renumber the all existing interchanges on the completed portions of the Interstate north of the city to Michigan) and sought to designate the freeway connecting the spaghetti bowl to the I-69/I-465 interchange (apprximately 11 miles to the northeast) as "I-169". Since there had been a political fight over the inner-city portions of I-70 and I-65 taking out too many homes and dividing neighborhoods, it was decided to scrap I-169; and in its place, widen I-70 to from 8 to 10 lanes and rework its eastside interchange with I-465 to handle the additional traffic loads from the northeastern suburbs.
- Currently, the possibility of I-69 being extended south and west from Indianapolis in order to run from Canada to Mexico is being planned and debated. Of course, any such extension would violate the original numbering scheme. The portion from the south side of Indianapolis (I-465 at IN 37) to the I-64/I-164 junction near Evansville, Indiana and beyond to Memphis, Tennessee should be designated I-63 (or I-61) since it is west of I-65 and east of I-55. The segment from Memphis to Shreveport, Louisiana should be designated I-51 or I-53; from Shreveport to Houston, Texas, the road should be known as I-47; and the segment from Houston to Victoria, Texas logically would be I-39. At this point, it really gets complicated, as up to 3 segments are proposed in Texas: Victoria to Brownsville via Corpus Christi (I-69 E, should be I-39), Victoria to Laredo via US 59 alignment (I-69 W, probably should be I-935), and a third route following the US 281 alignment from I-37/US 59 to McAllen then US 83 to "I-69 E" at Harlingen (I-69 C, probably shouldn't be built since it parallels I-37 & the proposed "I-69 E").