Michigan’s UP: Where Hundreds of Miles Go By Without a Single Stoplight

Anyone who has ever driven across Michigan's Upper Peninsula knows that it can be a long haul. After all, the UP is longer east-to-west than the Lower Peninsula is north-to-south.

Those long stretches of road are also not often interrupted by stop lights. It's astounding when you see visually some of the distances between traffic signals in the UP.

As with almost anything online, someone did the math. Here's what the visual of every stoplight in Michigan's Upper Peninsula looks like.

The Astonishing Scarcity of Traffic Signals

Urban Clusters: Where the Few Lights Reside

Here's the obvious, the traffic lights are all clusters in the UP's cities. They are located in, clockwise from Sault Ste Marie: Escanaba, Menominee, Iron Mountain, Iron River, Ironwood, Houghton/Hancock, Marquette/Ishpeming/Negaunee and Munising.

That also means there are, without exaggeration hundreds of miles without stopping for a light.

Visually, you can draw a straight line south from Ironwood and thread a needle across the midsection of the peninsula to Drummond Island.

READ MORE: Truckers Regularly Cross Very Remote Areas of Michigan and Go Hundreds of Miles Out of Their Way to Avoid Chicago

As the mapmaker commented, it's stark to see how isolated Newberry is. This is the small community near the desolate Seney Stretch and near Tahquamenon Falls.

County-by-County: The Northern Michigan Zero-Light Zones

Here are the apparent stats by county.

There is only one traffic light in Alger County. It's in Munising. Ontonagon, Baraga, Schoolcraft, Luce and Mackinac County do not have any traffic lights at all.

Oh, and that stoplight featured at the top of the article? That is in downtown Marquette.

👇🏼BELOW: 24 Bridges to Enter the Upper Peninsula of Michigan that Aren't the Mackinac Bridge + These Tiny Michigan Counties Have Less than 10,000 Residents👇🏼