A historic rock wall with Oak Park Cemetery at the corner of Mount Vernon Road SE and 15th Street SE in eastern Cedar Rapids has been removed. KCRG has a story and video.
The “Mount Vernon cutoff” east of Memorial Drive SE was paved as part of IA 6 in 1921. Its completion resulted in Marion being removed from the Lincoln Highway. The road stopped being part of US 30 in 1953. The road has various configurations between downtown and US 151. Closer to downtown, part of it has a tiny, really weird raised median that seems mostly designed to prevent oncoming-traffic crashes and left turns.
Six years ago, the city of Cedar Rapids approved a “Corridor Action Plan” that is 149 pages with 119-page appendix and 30-page summary. In the area of Oak Hill Cemetery, the plan is to create an arterial street to modern standards with a 4-foot raised median and sidewalks on both sides. That requires widening the right-of-way. I am typically pro-sidewalk, but this is a case where it’s too bad an exception could not be made.