Iowa Highway Ends (etc.)

As noted in the previous post, the Iowa DOT released its five-year draft May 8. The only items for the I-74 Mississippi River bridge area concerned right-of-way and some paving. There had been $63 million set aside for bridge construction, but that was dropped because Illinois had not budgeted any money in the next five years on its side — until a week ago.

Now, the Quad-City Times says, Illinois has put it back in and “local officials hope that investment will convince Iowa to maintain its construction funding.” A month earlier would have made it much easier to be convinced.

Where is Iowa going to pull that $63 million back from? A possible source is from the projects highlighted in the press release that either were new or moved up a year.

It’s interesting that Illinois is saying, or hoping, that this paint job on the I-74 bridge will be the last, although to be fair the last big job was 15 years ago. Iowa still has money programmed for bridge rehab in 2015 and 2017. This will also be another project to watch.

This is a timed post.

The Iowa DOT’s draft five-year plan released this month still puts the big money toward urban interstate projects, but it has a couple of surprises inside.

One of the projects of note is IA 58 and Viking Road in Cedar Falls, labeled as a future interchange in the press release. I know the area, and have one huge question: How do you cram an interchange in there?

Here’s what the intersection looks like today (via ortho.gis.iastate.edu). The Target in the southeast quadrant was the last to fill in the area. Everything except half the buildings in the southwest quadrant, and the one building on the west side of the frontage road in the northwest quadrant, is less than 15 years old. The trail running along the east side is relatively new too.

Right now, there’s only one entry in the construction plan: Grade and pave in 2016, $16 million. No right of way acquisition, no “bridge new” — two things that usually come before or at the same time if an interchange is being built. The listing does say “State share,” so it’s possible that the city of Cedar Falls is handling those aspects.

Compare that area with the future interchange of US 218 and C50 (PDF) to the north in Janesville, which is comparatively sparse development-wise, yet will move the entire expressway over to the east. Continue reading →

Since the opening of the Ottumwa and Kirksville bypasses, Waterloo has had more stoplights on US 63 than the entire route from I-90 to US 50/54 in Jefferson City combined. It was the only highway in the Waterloo area that did not get an upgrade from surface street to four-lane, although there is a project to make the situation on the north side better.

After reaching I-90, a US 63 traveler encounters the last big slowdown on the route: Broadway through downtown Rochester, Minnesota. That will cease to be the case next year.

US 63 is going to be rerouted around Rochester. I first saw this in the application to the U.S. Special Committee on Numbered Highways, and it was corroborated by two recent articles in the Rochester Post-Bulletin. Like nearly all such cases in the 21st century, the reroute will become longer in length but shorter in travel time. The timetable set in one article is “by the middle of next year.”

Continue reading →

One of the new components in the DOT’s 2013-17 construction plan is the replacement of the US 52/IA 64 bridge at Iowa’s far eastern end in 2016. It would be the third major river bridge in Iowa to be replaced in the past ten years (US 275/IA 92, IA 394/27) but the first across the Mississippi since the US 34 Great River Bridge opened in 1993.

The existing bridge has a steel deck and is very narrow. The question of whether the new bridge will have a superstructure is an interesting one because the existing bridge uses two massive piers to let barges and other river traffic underneath. If it does, it’s not likely to be this elaborate, but I have not seen any designs.

The Savanna-Sabula Bridge will be 80 years old at the end of this year. It is the third-oldest Iowa bridge still in use across the Mississippi River but the second-longest in continuous operation, due to the Black Hawk Bridge being closed for 12 years. Only the Government Bridge in Davenport, which no longer carries a signed highway, and the IA 2/IL 9 toll bridge in Fort Madison are older.