It isn’t quite radio silence, but there hasn’t been much of anything in the way of news regarding the new US 34 bridge over the Missouri River. This online collection of images, for example, has one set from last July for all of 2013. Aerial photos from 2013 show the approaches constructed, and the DOT put out a letting for signage, so that is some sort of progress for a project that would have been done last year but still is suffering from delays of flooding in 2011.
Late last month, though, one piece of information did escape. Nebraska submitted an application to AASHTO’s committee on highway numbering to move US 34. It’s on the link from this page, although it’s a Word file instead of a PDF and contains embedded links to PDFs of individual applications. Anyway, that document says the opening will be in November 2014. (I’d bet on it opening days before Thanksgiving.)
US 34 will still exit Iowa from Mills County, but will now enter Sarpy County NE before heading south into Cass County NE. This is the first time a highway leaving Iowa has been rerouted into a different county since US 61/151 were routed through East Dubuque for two decades. The change will increase US 34’s duplex with US 75 from 13 miles to about 19.