highway purposes.
Three-fourths of the new money went for highways, roads and streets and lawmakers ordered the state's share to be spent on completing a backbone system of freeways and upgrading specific other major highways.
In the spring of 1973, Gov. William G. Milliken issued an executive order reorganizing the state highway department giving it jurisdiction over all state transportation programs. He directed the highway commission and the department to develop and deliver a unified, coordinated program for total transportation for the people of Michigan.
Marching bands helped open the final link in the 193 miles of I-96 from Muskegon to downtown Detroit. This 12-mile segment through Livonia, built at a cost of $126 million, opened Nov. 21, 1977.
Symbolic of this sweeping change, Milliken signed legislation Aug. 23, 1973, adding "and Transportation" to the department's traditional designation of highways only.
For the first time, Michigan's agency for highways expanded its responsibility to aeronautics, railroads, buses, water transportation and port development and non-motorized transportation such as bike paths and equestrian trails.
For the department, it was the end of one era and the beginning of another. It took time and a strenuous shifting of gears, but the single-minded goal of building and maintaining the best possible state highway system gave way to the larger goal: developing an integrated, total transportation system for Michigan.
Woodford, appointed director of the "highways" department at the end of 1972, now was handed the challenging task of transition, shifting departmental gears and taking some 4,500 personnel with him.
A few months later, the need for a comprehensive transportation system became even more apparent. An oil embargo by Arab nations quickly reduced supplies of gasoline and sent prices into an upward spiral. Ridership on public transportation systems began to climb, bolstered by state programs to expand existing systems
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