An I-80 construction project in Cedar County is designed for the long-term future.
The Oct. 18 DOT letting includes both bridges over Sugar Creek. That’s between the IA 38 exits, by the rest areas. This is one of the two places in the state where one direction of interstate traffic is briefly unable to see the other, and the crossings aren’t exactly parallel. The westbound bridge is wider than the eastbound to allow an auxiliary lane for traffic merging from the rest area.
This plan comes close to matching a proposal at the northbound IA 38 exit, just to the west, which in 2018 included the ULTIMATE LANE. The width of these bridges, with four lanes of traffic in each direction, is the most notable part of them, but expansion of the interstate to six or eight lanes for any distance in this area is a long way off.