U.S. Highway 23

U.S. Highway 23 is a long north-south U.S. highway between Mackinaw City, Michigan and Jacksonville, Florida. It is an original route (1926) which originally reached only so far south as Portsmouth, Ohio and has since been extended. The designation is more intact (for now) than that of many other routes in the north-central and mid-Atlantic states, at least for now.

States Traversed

Michigan

US-23 follows the shoreline of Lake Huron and Saginaw Bay between Mackinaw City and Standish, Michigan, serving such lakeside communities as Cheboygan, Michigan, Rogers City, Michigan, Alpena, Michigan, and East Tawas, Michigan, before being diverted inland near Standish to Interstate 75. At Standish, Michigan State Highway 13 continues the old lakeside route of US-23 between Standish and Bay City, Michigan. Interstate 75 is a much more direct route for long-distance travel between Mackinaw City and Standish.

With Interstate 75 it passes Bay City, Saginaw, Michigan, and Flint, Michigan before separating south of Flint. US-23 is freeway past Brighton, Michigan (junction Interstate 96), Ann Arbor, Michigan (junction Interstate 94 and Michigan State Highway 14), Milan, Michigan, and Dundee, Michigan. It meets its "child" route U.S. Highway 223 just north of the Ohio state line.

With Interstate 475 along the west side of Toledo, US 23 is a more direct route tban Interstate 75 for those who wish to avoid greater Detroit.

Ohio

US-23 continues as freeway to Sylvania, Ohio, where it feeds into Interstate 475 and runs concurrently with I-475 around the west side of Toledo, Ohio. At the southern terminus of I-475 at the junction with Interstate 75 near Perrysburg, Ohio, US-23 runs concurrently with I-75 north for one exit to a junction with US-20, after with it continues east concurrent with US-20 for several miles before separating and continuing due south. The freeway segment of US 23 in southeastern Michigan and northwestern Ohio ends at the I-75 interchange with US023/US-20.

Note that US 23/Interstate 475 has no direct interchange with the Ohio Turnpike (Interstate 80 and Interstate 90). One must (in 2004) use either surface routes in Holland, Ohio or Interstate 75 to get access to or from the turnpike.

US-23 then coincides with US-20 before turning south upon surface undivided road near Woodville, Ohio through Fostoria, Ohio to Carey, Ohio, where it meets a divided highway, Ohio State Highway 15, that with US-23 forms a divided highway, some of it freeway, forms a divided highway between Findlay, Ohio and Columbus, Ohio. The US-23 segment of that highway, part of it freeway, passes Upper Sandusky, Ohio, Marion, Ohio (home of the 29th President of the United States, Warren G. Harding, and Delaware, Ohio, before entering greater Columbus.

Kentucky

Virginia

Tennessee

North Carolina

Georgia

Florida