U.S. Highway 223
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US 223 is a short, diagonal (northwest to southeast) highway lying in Michigan and Ohio, though the Ohio section is completely concurrent with US 23. It connects US 127 to and from the north (Jackson, Michigan) and US 23 to and from the south (Toledo, Ohio). Although its signed destinations are Jackson, Michigan and Toledo, Ohio, it never reached Jackson, instead feeding into U.S. Highway 127 to and from the north; it no longer reaches Toledo, Ohio, instead feeding the freeway system of greater Toledo through U.S. Highway 23, itself a freeway.
It has a business route, the old US 223 through Adrian, a bypass having built to the south and west of Adrian. This bypass does not approach an Interstate standard; it is almost entirely an undivided surface road. Proposals have been made for aligning an Interstate 73 parallel to all or part of US 223; these have led to some political resistance.
In 1977 Michigan realigned a segment of this highway so that it would intersect U.S. Highway 23 at a more northerly interchange north of the Michigan-Ohio state line, and thus a concurrency with US 23 was added. Ohio soon decommissioned the old road south of the concurrency in favor of Ohio State Highway 51, an extension of an existing route.
Throughout its remaining course, except for the US 23 concurrency, it is an undivided surface road except for a short segment of divided highway at the intersection of US 223 and Business US 223 north and west of Adrian.