Category Archives: Iowa Miscellaneous

Oct 24

Sioux City historical map series changes

While looking through old aerial photos of Sioux City I noticed two very little changes to its alignment that I hadn’t included in my map series. (In fact, if I didn’t make this post I doubt they’d be seen at … Continue reading

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Oct 22

Windsor Heights doesn’t include Hickman Road

Despite being in the southwest corner of the intersection of Hickman Road and 63rd Street, this position is actually in Urbandale. Here’s an interesting tidbit I came across last week. If you look at the DOT city map of Windsor … Continue reading

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Oct 19

Spanning the state

Numbers to know (Cedar Rapids Gazette): The Federal Highway Administration’s National Bridge Inventory counts 24,799 Iowa spans. Of the total, 5,358 are considered structurally deficient, and another 1,320 functionally obsolete. Iowa has more bridges than California.

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Oct 13

A plea for sanity on HD news graphics

The background behind the anchors or the text does NOT have to move. The images do NOT have to rotate. Chyrons/text elements do NOT need a lens flare around the borders, much less a moving one. KWWL, you did it … Continue reading

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Oct 03

They call it progress

“My father had a farm in eastern Dallas County…” — “Progress,” Robert John Ford (from the musical “Utopia”) The sight last week was so incongruous I couldn’t pass it up. Three bins, one tractor, one cornfield, just like so many other … Continue reading

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Sep 28

In which I learn I cannot be president of France

Since Iowa was part of the Louisiana Purchase, I was eligible for it until recently, although I still would have needed to learn French. Now I shall go away before being taunted a second time.

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Sep 20

2012 Iowa map errors

This is a refresher on an old task of mine: Proofreading the official state highway map. I skipped two years partly because so many corrections had been made. The entire list is after the jump.

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Sep 18

Why the Des Moines beltway can’t be an interstate (yet)

There’s another article out about studying an interstate upgrade for the US 65/IA 5 Des Moines beltway. There is more to an interstate designation than just signage. There are also rules about slow-moving vehicles and minimum speed limits. Right now, … Continue reading

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Sep 03

Hurricane Isaac followup

The remnants of Hurricane Isaac, which by Saturday was nothing more than a spinning low-pressure system, reached state parks in far southeastern Iowa and soaked the Old Threshers Reunion in Mount Pleasant.

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Aug 31

Hurricanes in Iowa

The National Weather Service in Des Moines recently included a series in its newsletters about hurricanes whose official track went through Iowa. There have been three: The Galveston hurricane of 1900, which made it all the way to Central Iowa … Continue reading

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