October 31, 2013: Polk County Supervisor Angela Connolly (holding scissors) and other city and county officials cut the ribbon to open a diagonal road between Army Post Road and IA 28 (1st/63rd streets) in West Des Moines at Brown’s Woods Forest Preserve.
Part of a construction plan 20 years in the making has been scrapped.
The Des Moines Register reports that the eastern part of the Southwest Connector, which was intended to run from Brown’s Woods to a point south of downtown Des Moines, will not move forward. City officials say traffic on Fleur Drive and Park Avenue has not increased enough to merit construction of a new road.
West Des Moines, which named its segment of the road Veterans Parkway a while ago, has made progress on its segments (breaking up Army Post Road in the process). That city’s long-term expansionism sets up an intersection between the parkway and a southern extension of Alice’s Road Grand Prairie Parkway in the vicinity of the intersection of 105th Street and Vintage Avenue in Madison County.
Des Moines’ Southeast Connector, which opened between SE 15th and SE 30th Streets in 2016, is moving forward, with a connection to US 65 opening sometime in the next decade.