October 19, 2002: View from D Avenue in Grundy County during construction of a 27-mile four-lane segment of US 20. The freeway opened ten months later.
It’s time for the five-year update map to the timeline of Iowa’s four-lane highways, and while creating it a giant fact jumped out.
Iowa did not open a new four-lane road in the 2013 calendar year. Iowa has opened something new every year except 1980 starting back in 1957, when a small part of I-29 opened in Sioux City and US 75 was four-laned between Merrill and Le Mars.
There originally was supposed to be a new segment, US 34 to the Missouri River, but that has been delayed by flooding and the breeding schedule of a fish. (Seriously.) In Clinton, the Liberty Square project was completed, but that was turning US 30/67 into a six-lane urban boulevard, not a freeway or expressway. Just north of the state line, MN 60/US 59 was finished south of Worthington.
This isn’t to say that there wasn’t progress made on Iowa’s highway system in 2013. The state is pouring tons of money into Sioux City and Council Bluffs right now, adding bridges and lane miles, just not wholly new roads. Look at the five-year plan. Turning a late-1960s four-lane freeway into a 12-lane behemoth with flyover ramps isn’t easy or cheap.
If projects for US 20 and IA 100 remain on schedule, Iowa should continue opening new four-lane segments through the decade.
This is the 1,000th post on the Iowa Highway Ends (etc.) blog.