High Quality Content by WIKIPEDIA articles! US Highway 16 (US 16), also called Grand River Avenue for much of its length, is one of the principal pre-Interstate roads in the state of Michigan. Before the creation of the United States Numbered Highway System in 1926, the highway had been designated M-16. The modern road cuts across the Lower Peninsula in a northwest–southeast fashion from Grand Rapids to Detroit. Before the late 1950s and early 1960s, US 16 followed other roads between Muskegon and Grand Rapids, and then Grand River Avenue through Lansing to Detroit. With the coming of the Interstate Highway System, US 16 was shifted from the older roads to the new freeways. When the gap in the freeway was filled in around Lansing, the US 16 designation was decommissioned in the state. The freeway was then designated only Interstate 96 (I-96) or I-196.