A quarter-century after a southern bypass of downtown Des Moines began, it’s going to reach US 65 by the end of the 2020s.
The Des Moines Register reports on the city’s announcement that $34 million will go to the project. Construction will start in 2025. The money comes from the Infrastructure For Rebuilding America fund, which was created in 2015 and is designed for projects “of national or regional significance.”
The idea of some sort of connector and/or relief route had been percolating since the construction of I-235, but there were plenty of obstacles along the way, including land acquisitions.
The most difficult and expensive part of the Southeast Connector project has been the bridges. This last piece includes a viaduct at the east end spanning both Fourmile Creek and a railroad line. The Martin Luther King Boulevard project was the first part of this long-term idea, so it’s bridges at both ends and in the middle at the Des Moines River that made this both critical and seemingly vaporware (in a road context).
Currently, the Southeast Connector ends at Southeast 30th Street just southwest of the Iowa State Fairgrounds. A summer 2021 update on the project (PDF) focused on the intersection of Pleasant Hill Boulevard and Vandalia Road just west of US 65. That reconfigured the area near the interchange to prepare for a road heading west-northwest.
Projects in other states that are getting money from this fund include six-laning I-10 between Phoenix and Tucson; a bridge across the Columbia River at Hood River, Oregon; and a container ship terminal at the Port of New Orleans.