Starting today, according to an Iowa DOT press release, the intersection of US 218 and Maple Street on the north side of Janesville will be closed. A new road will be built alongside the railroad tracks heading north to a new intersection with 260th Street, which is getting an interchange with US 218.
The closure of the intersection is the next step in the plan to convert US 218 between Janesville and Waverly into a full freeway. Building an interchange between the C57 and Business 218 exits allows for current intersections in the area to feed into frontage roads.
This is, to my knowledge, the third interchange in Iowa with a gravel road. The other two are the River Road and Honey Creek exits on I-680 in Pottawattamie County. There will be some pavement on 260th, from the railroad eastward, and three of the four frontage roads will be paved. One of those is the Maple Street extension. One is an Easton Avenue extension that will use some of 218’s present northbound lanes as 218 finally gets a kink that’s been around since forever ironed out. The final paved extension, Eagle Avenue, will include a short segment over a stub of 1920s concrete that was bypassed long ago and ended its life as a driveway to a farmhouse that was torn down in 2020.