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M-6 is a 19.7-mile (31.7 km) freeway in Michigan that serves portions of southern Kent and eastern Ottawa counties south of Grand Rapids. Initially opened to traffic on November 20, 2001, the roadway connects Interstate 196 on the west with Interstate 96 on the east while running through several townships on the south side of the w:Grand Rapids metropolitan area. Each end is in a rural area while the central section has suburban development along the highway. The freeway was originally conceived in the 1960s, and it took 32 years to approve, plan, finance, and build M-6 from the time that the state first authorized funding in 1972 to the time the full highway opened to traffic in 2004. Initial construction started in November 1997, with the first phase opened in 2001 and the remainder in November 2004. The project was built with two firsts: the first single-point urban interchange in the state, and a new technique to apply the pavement markings, embedding them into the concrete to reduce the chance of a snowplow scraping them off. (Full article...)