Oct 20

Package of 80/380 interchange plans available

Posted on Tuesday, October 20, 2015, at 10:21 AM by Jeff

After a meeting at the end of last month, the DOT released the set of plans for the complete reconstruction of the I-80/380 interchange from a cloverleaf into a sweeping interchange with flyover ramps. It’s broken into nine PDF maps. The big project could be done in pieces based on availability of money — for example, it could do the long ramp from eastbound 80 to northbound 380 first.

One lane will be added in every direction around the interchange, making I-80 10 lanes wide total for the short distance between I-380 and the Coral Ridge exit.

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Oct 19

More about Iowa’s northern and western borders

Posted on Monday, October 19, 2015, at 10:00 AM by Jeff

Years ago, I wrote about my research into the back-and-forth of the 1830s and 1840s in creating the shape of the state of Iowa. I mentioned that I had never seen any proposal of a northern border of 45° from the Mississippi River to the Missouri River, including the southern third of Minnesota and all of eastern South Dakota.

However, as part of an “Iowa 101” course co-sponsored by The Des Moines Register, DMACC, and Graceland University, a foray into the history of Iowa’s northern and western borders that relies almost exclusively on research into Minnesota’s borders does indicate that a straight line that far north was considered at least at one point.

In the end, all the future inhabitants of the land between 43°30′ and 45° N were deprived of their chance to be Iowans, while those east of the Missouri and Big Sioux Rivers were spared the horror of becoming Nebraskans.

The lesson has a curt dismissal of “how far the future Iowa would extend to the south” and I must point out that this certainly wasn’t settled easily, and is among the more famous border disputes in the country.

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Oct 16

Two gamecast firsts for ISU-TCU

Posted on Friday, October 16, 2015, at 10:00 AM by Jeff

Saturday’s game will have two firsts for Iowa State, not counting the possibility of the Jack Trice Stadium scoreboards registering triple digits for the visiting Horned Frogs.*

The game will start at 6 on ESPN2. Iowa State has never been in a Saturday night game on ABC, ESPN, or ESPN2 in the current “every game on TV somewhere” era. (2011 Oklahoma State was a Friday, 2013 Texas a Thursday.) So this game takes the easiest picking of those off the list.

ESPN’s Beth Mowins will do the play-by-play. Mowins did the radio play-by-play for the 2012 Liberty Bowl, but still to my knowledge this will be the first time a woman has called an ISU football game on TV. Mowins has called plenty of Iowa games, because she often gets assigned the 11 AM Big Ten game, but ISU is almost always on FSN or FS1 in that time slot. (A notable exception is last year’s TCU game, on ABC because there was a light slate of games and TCU was a College Football Playoff contender. TCU proceeded to paste ISU to the point of kneeling in the red zone in the fourth quarter, only to find out that the playoff committee did not look kindly on mercy.)

Whatever happens in the TCU game, Baylor will be looking to surpass it next week when the Cyclones go to Waco…and that game will be on “the ESPN family of networks” at 11 AM. If Mowins is assigned that game too, that’s going to be a heck of a curse to escape from.

*BLOOD. SO MUCH BLOOD. And not just from the eyes of the Frogs either.

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Oct 15

Meeting on US 30 in Story County today

Posted on Thursday, October 15, 2015, at 10:00 AM by Jeff

The Iowa DOT will hold a meeting with a formal presentation about upgrading US 30 between I-35 and Nevada in Ames today at 5. The plan is to close at-grade intersections, build interchanges just east of I-35 (with an all-new overpass road) and at the Nevada airport corner, and close both the old IA 133 and S14 intersections in favor of a single overpass that splits the difference.

According to the project statement, traffic on that part of US 30 has nearly doubled since it became four lanes in 1992. When this project is completed, 30 will be a full freeway from the east side of Nevada to the west side of Ames.

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Oct 14

Council Bluffs reaches informal agreement on transfer

Posted on Wednesday, October 14, 2015, at 10:00 AM by Jeff

West Broadway (US 6) and North 16th Street (IA 192) in Council Bluffs will cease to be part of the Iowa highway system within a year, as the city council has approved a “memorandum of understanding” to take over the roads. The DOT has proposed giving the city $20 million, but a transfer of jurisdiction has not been finalized. The state will be in charge of snowplow duties this winter, so April 1 is probably the earliest date this can happen.

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Oct 13

Should we really be encouraging this sort of thing?

Posted on Tuesday, October 13, 2015, at 10:01 AM by Jeff

The 2015 Burlington tourism guide features a smiling family on the cover. There’s nothing unusual about that. They’re all wearing flip-flops except the youngest, who’s wearing Crocs. That’s a warning sign, but they are at a pool with water slides, so there’s at least a reason for them all to be wearing flip-flops.

The last part, though, is unforgivable. The mother is taking a family selfie.

Ewwwwww.

(The word “selfie” and variants were inescapable this year at the Iowa State Fair and at ISU football. I suppose the real question is how it took that long to happen. A selfie with the butter cow is just sacrilegious.)

Posted in Iowa Miscellaneous | Comments Off on Should we really be encouraging this sort of thing?
Oct 12

Iowa Public Radio interviews US 6 filmmakers

Posted on Monday, October 12, 2015, at 10:00 AM by Jeff

About a month ago, right before the Iowa U.S. Route 6 Tourist Association drove across the state, Iowa Public Radio interviewed the filmmakers who made a movie about the highway. David Darby, who’s behind the Iowa chapter of the US 6 group and has done research and photography on the highway, was also interviewed.

The interview is 48 minutes long.

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Oct 09

No, that’s not how you spell it

Posted on Friday, October 9, 2015, at 10:11 AM by Jeff


September 27, 2015: This window covering in downtown Davenport made me do a double-take. Let’s ask some cheerleaders what’s wrong with this. They might have a chant that can help us.

Posted in Iowa Miscellaneous | Comments Off on No, that’s not how you spell it
Oct 08

Iowa’s Great River Road is broken

Posted on Thursday, October 8, 2015, at 10:00 AM by Jeff

There are two significant closures on the Great River Road route in southeast Iowa with little or no detour signage.

One is a recent development that threatens to become long-term. The road just southeast of Montrose was washed out earlier this year. No detours have been posted. If you approach from the south, there is no easy point to turn around. You have to go three miles back to 320th Street to get any road heading west to US 61/218, and five miles back to J82 to get a paved road. The Montrose police chief has been issuing tickets to drivers caught in the barricaded section.

Lee County should set up a detour for X28 (the designation for the GRR between Keokuk and Montrose) via J82, US 62, and J72 (old IA 404) — or at the very least put up a “No access to Montrose” sign at the Sandusky corner. Great River Road travelers will miss the Galland School marker, but would at least know they can get to it and will have to turn around.

The second development happened six-plus years ago: The bridge carrying Main Street across Cascade Ravine south of downtown Burlington, commonly called the “Cascade Bridge”, is permanently closed to vehicles (and now also to pedestrians) due to age and failing condition. There are signs that warn “Downtown Traffic use Madison and Harrison”, but the GRR arrows still direct into the park and to the closed bridge.

In both cases, I believe the scenic byway signs should be changed until repairs are made to both segments.

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Oct 07

Ocheyedan school likely to be demolished

Posted on Wednesday, October 7, 2015, at 10:16 AM by Jeff

Residents of Ocheyedan favor tearing down its baby-boom-era school building, the Worthington Daily Globe reports. The amount of money it would take to refurbish and remodel the building is more than the building would be assessed at afterwards, the article says.

An interesting part of the story, which applies to other towns facing the same issue, is that converting the school to a community center or town hall would leave the existing town hall in the lurch.

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