For this look at the upcoming five-year plan, not everything new is mentioned and not everything previously in is mentioned. Years are fiscal years as listed in the draft program (large PDF; scroll to near the bottom for the highway segment).
- Replacement of the IA 9 Mississippi River bridge at Lansing, Iowa’s oldest state-maintained bridge over the river, has been added to 2024. That’s two decades after a feasibility study (large PDF), and seven years after a meeting to prepare to develop an environmental assessment. No matter what happens, the bridge will not be allowed to make it to its centennial, according to this article from the La Crosse Tribune.
- The ends of the massive projects in Sioux City, the I-74 bridge, and Council Bluffs are really within sight now, with work ending in 2020, 2021, and 2022, respectively. The last of those, though, doesn’t include anything on I-80 between the Madison Avenue and US 6 exits, and the Council Bluffs Interstate website itself indicates work around the I-29/I-480 interchange could last until mid-2023.
- US 30 remains on schedule to be four-laned from Tama to IA 21 in 2020, at IA 21 in 2021, and from IA 21 to US 218 in 2023. The US 218 bridge over an abandoned railroad just south of the E44 junction will be taken out in 2023.
- I-80 is going to be six-laned … in small bites … east of Des Moines … eventually. There are projects at IA 146 (2022, up a year), from the Cedar River to the Durant exit (2023), the Herbert Hoover Highway to West Branch (2023), and over the Skunk River (2021). West Branch is definitely six. The Cedar County portion could be six; the IA 38 exit meeting was the one with plans for the ULTIMATE LANE. The Skunk crossing based on this map will be grade-for-six, pave-for-four, and a section east of US 169 over the Raccoon River will likely get the same treatment.
- Unquestionably getting six lanes: I-35 in the north part of Ankeny (2020) and then to IA 210 (2024). Spots in Warren County where current new southbound lane grading abruptly ends will be closed up over five years, but may not yet come with lane expansion.
- Four-lane US 61 north of Burlington to Mediapolis has been pushed up a year. The Mediapolis bypass is on for 2024.
- That US 61 project, the US 30 project mentioned above, and a US 18/218 interchange in Floyd (2022) are all pegged as made possible by the increase in the state gas tax.
- Grading for a US 63 bypass of Oskaloosa pops up in 2024, meaning paving would follow a year or two later.
- Both the Swiss Valley Road exit and the Southwest Arterial in Dubuque County are programmed to be finished by next July.
- The DOT has condensed the I-80/I-380 interchange project a bit, moving faster earlier, possibly to make way for rebuilding the 1st Avenue interchange in Coralville. See this Gazette story.
- Interestingly, more projects that I wouldn’t typify as major — for example, replacing the early-1980s concrete on US 20 between US 63 and IA 21, or a 2.5-mile new piece of IA 17 moving off the Lincoln Highway — have a “traffic signs” category. I don’t know if it’s because costs for signs alone have gone up, or it’s for more accurate accounting, or what. Looking back at the previous plan, there were some lines for signs there too, so perhaps I just wasn’t noticing all of them.
- A US 59 bridge over an abandoned railroad is going to be taken out in 2021. It’s been on the program, but it caught my eye this time because while going through the Cherokee newspaper archives I read about construction of its predecessor.