Iowa Highway Ends (etc.)

The US 63 railroad underpass north of downtown Waterloo often has water in it, and it’s not just because it’s a low spot. There’s a microorganism that interferes with the draining, a DOT engineer tells KWWL. In the next two years, US 63 will be rebuilt here and turned into an overpass instead.

Last week’s Iowa Transportation Commission meeting included approval of “U.S. 30 Corridor Prioritization,” a designation that doesn’t mean anything concrete yet on a timeline or funding. Stories: KWQC (above, misidentifying “Iowa Highway 30” at the start), KCRG (using KWQC’s footage).

The Clinton Herald has a lot more information, including the four segments being prioritized: De Witt to Calamus, Stanwood to Lisbon, Ogden to Jefferson, and a Missouri Valley bypass. Notably, the motion passed by one vote.

While I argued recently that maybe what’s left of two-lane 30 in eastern Iowa didn’t need to be four-laned, there is a safety argument to be made. In central Iowa, the big bottleneck is going to be the Grand Junction railroad overpass, for which a new bridge is being built right now that has a special Lincoln Highway-themed design. Either we get one to match or something’s going to look very off. The new lanes would have to be on the south side of the current road there, but then switch to the north to avoid businesses. Then just to the west of that, we pretty much have to have new overpasses because otherwise there’ll be an expressway with an at-grade railroad crossing right by a major intersection. IA 144 can be moved to the west, but the railroad is still there. A Missouri Valley bypass to the south looks easy except it would also involve two railroad crossings. This is going to take a while, and since the state already has plans out to 2022, any progress on any of this won’t come until after then.

(The “transfer of jurisdiction” for US 61/IA 92 at that meeting is for the part of the current two-lane left behind when the four-lane opens, BTW.)

Starting today, Cedar Rapids will being converting Second Avenue from one-way to two-way in downtown. This is one block east of Business 151. It’s going to take a while because the city is going to add “bump-outs” — things on corners that stop you from driving straight ahead from the parking area — and new railroad crossing signals have to be put in. Here is a city map (PDF) showing what streets are going to be converted the next couple of years, and which ones are staying one-way.

The Second and Third avenue bridges are going to have angle parking installed, with one lane of traffic in each direction. While Second and Third currently have three lanes of through traffic, addition of the bike lanes probably takes that down to one each way. All the stoplights along Second Avenue downtown are going to be taken out and replaced with four-way stops, too.