Roundabouts are bad enough, but a double roundabout at a diamond interchange is perhaps the stupidest construction “innovation” of the past decade. Wisconsin adores them; the new(ish) US 12 from Baraboo to Wisconsin Dells is infested with such pairs. This means that to go through the interchange on the cross road is to endure two separate roundabouts in a short span.
The first case of them in Iowa is University Avenue at IA 27/58 in Cedar Falls. The second is proposed for the eastern edge of Iowa City.
Plans released at a meeting June 5 show a six-lane I-80 between the Herbert Hoover Highway and West Branch exits, picking up from where that currently stops. The Herbert Hoover Highway (F44, formerly IA 979, IA 1, IA 139, and IA 74) would be repositioned across the interstate. Today’s onramp to eastbound 80 follows almost exactly the road line that existed straight through the land that became the exit area; that intersection will be moved from its current spot.
Jason Hancock’s research found that this segment of I-80 had a special temporary opening for the Herbert Hoover Presidential Library and Museum in 1962, then opened for good two weeks later. A Cedar Rapids Gazette article at the time said 50,000 visitors were expected and opening the highway “was expected to ease what otherwise might have been a gigantic traffic tieup.”
This will be the first six-lane interstate in Iowa not immediately at/in a metro area, although obviously it’s very near Iowa City, and part of a long-term plan to six-lane I-80 to Davenport.