Real, tangible evidence of progress (2011 USDA aerials via Iowa Ortho Server)
Decades in the planning, it’s almost here — parts of it anyway. The final relocation of US 20 (but not the final four-lane paving) is on schedule. The five-year plan is down to the customary last two entries of any such project: pavement rehab and erosion control in 2013. That means that if everything goes well, all of new 20 may be open either by the end of this year or the end of next year. The official plan is to get the part east of County Road N14/extended IA 196 open this fall. There will be an interchange there.
“Pavement rehab” is generally repaving the old alignment the year after the new one opens, taking traffic off the route and enabling the turnover of the road to the county — in this case, old 20 west of IA 4. (Sac, Calhoun, and Webster counties all had to agree to take the old road before the new would be built. No two-decade-old IA 920 here.) Related to that: IA 196 will have about a mile around the current 20 intersection paved in 2014.
The four-lane gap will then be closed from the west. A two-step process will upgrade the road between Moville and Correctionville, with grading in 2014 and 2017 and some paving in 2016 (and then, presumably, 2018, to finish the job). The highway in Correctionville, around the intersection with IA 31, will be upgraded to a five-lane configuration. That will leave the 32 miles between Correctionville and Early.
There are two major projects planned in eastern Iowa on US 20, too: An interchange in Dyersville just west of the Delaware/Dubuque county line with a relocated X49 in 2015, and an interchange with Seippel Road southwest of Dubuque. The latter is interesting because Seippel Road didn’t even intersect US 20 until the 1990s, and there is nothing there right now. However, the Menards to the northeast is the first stoplight on 20 east of Sac City (soon, the first stoplight on 20 since O’Neill NE, period) and Olde Highway Road, the pre-1950s route of 20 that goes to Centralia, intersects in such a way that an interchange there is not feasible.