It’s a humble freeway exit – number 82B – off northbound US 131 in the heart of Grand Rapids. But Hynes Avenue may be Michigan’s most misunderstood and least used exit.
It is almost literally an exit to nowhere.
Hynes Avenue is today nothing more than a frontage road to US 131 for a few blocks between Burton Ave and Martin Luther King Jr Street. Frontage roads are very common in the Detroit area with nearly every freeway there built with them. Outside of Metro Detroit, they are nearly unheard of.
Hynes Avenue Access to Grand Rapids Railroad Yard
That makes Hynes Avenue little more than an extended on and off ramp to the free way. At the 82B exit, Hynes serves a single driveway to the Hughart Yard, a railroad freight yard.
Hughart dates back to the late 1800s and was once a bustling railyard building and switching train cars…