Author Archives: Jeff

Aug 10

US 63 Mississippi River bridge to be replaced

July 25, 2016: The US 63 Mississippi River crossing, officially known as the Eisenhower Bridge, as seen from a marina on the Wisconsin side. In unintentional conjunction with the US 54 bridge blog post, “my highway” is going to get … Continue reading

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Aug 09

US 54 Mississippi River bridge to be replaced

July 12, 2016: The US 54 bridge across the Mississippi River, from Louisiana, Missouri. Not Iowa news, but “this is going to affect my plans to have every Mississippi River bridge crossed between St. Paul and Memphis” news: State and … Continue reading

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Aug 08

Knoxville gets explanation for interchange sign change

And it’s in line with what I said was the case. The Iowa DOT’s goal in the stripped-down and genericized signs at exits is to reduce the “pieces of information” offered to the driver. The old sign (seen above) has eight … Continue reading

Posted in Iowa Miscellaneous | Comments Off on Knoxville gets explanation for interchange sign change
Aug 05

Renewed push for Floyd overpass

Iowa’s network of four-lane roads grew substantially in the 1990s, but it came with the tradeoff that most of them had at-grade intersections. That has proven to be a problem in certain locations as traffic increased. Right now, construction on … Continue reading

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Aug 04

OABCIG consolidation vote planned

The Battle Creek-Ida Grove and Odebolt-Arthur school districts have a reorganization vote planned for September, the Sioux City Journal reported a while ago. Their current whole-grade sharing agreement dates back to 2009, making it one of the oldest active two-way plans. … Continue reading

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Aug 03

Waterloo accepts transfer of University Avenue

July 15, 2007: East end of IA 934 approaching the complicated US 63/218 interchange. IA 934 is gone as soon as the Iowa Transportation Commission finalizes a $28 million agreement with the city of Waterloo. The Waterloo city council voted … Continue reading

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Aug 02

Another GR dissolution committee meeting tonight

The Gladbrook-Reinbeck Dissolution Committee* has a meeting tonight at 7 in the Reinbeck auditorium. The agenda is pretty sparse, covering the steps taken so far, including the map, and the June and July minutes (which were not online when I wrote … Continue reading

Posted in Schools, Tama County | Comments Off on Another GR dissolution committee meeting tonight
Aug 01

Iowa’s seventh electoral vote

Depending on what you think about Colorado and New Mexico this election cycle (or Utah??), there could be as few as two “tossup” states in November outside the Eastern Time Zone. Iowa is one of them, but there’s a not-quite-secret … Continue reading

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Jul 29

Mediapolis bypass plans concern residents

The final segment of US 61 to be four-laned in Iowa is in Louisa and Des Moines counties, and with the segment north of IA 92 under construction, Mediapolis is the last town on the route to be bypassed. Unlike … Continue reading

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Jul 28

Google mangles Maps, again

In the current tech contest to make any website unusable for anyone with a real computer and worse than 20/15, 500-shades-of-gray vision, Google has taken a whack at Maps — and I mean whack in the East River sense. So … Continue reading

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