Iowa Highway Ends (etc.)

The U.S. 20 Corridor Association met in Sac City (which is no longer directly on US 20), and the Fort Dodge Messenger has a report.

The immediate next step in upgrading 20 to four lanes will be between Moville and Correctionville. In the five-year plan, new lanes will be graded and bridges built between Moville and Correctionville this year, but not paved until 2016. The two lanes built after that will not be directly on top of the existing lanes (and section line), but nearby.

The Messenger reports the DOT engineer at the meeting said it would cost $400 million to finish the 44 miles of US 20 in Iowa that are not four lanes.

KWWL has a(nother) story about the troublesome state of University Avenue — once US 218, now IA 934 — in Cedar Falls and Waterloo. A DOT employee says there are “negotiations” for transferring jurisdiction to the cities. At the same time, however, there have been fits and starts at coming up with a comprehensive plan for the six-lane urban arterial. The most recent is a roundabout-laden monstrosity with four lanes of traffic plus a bike lane and “multi-use path.”

The state often does studies before funding is attached — the Wapello bypass and four-laning US 61 in Louisa County would be one of them — but this seems different, almost like a game of hot potato. I suspect the situation is along the lines of the following:

• The state and the cities know University Avenue needs to be repaired — check that, not repaired but wholly rebuilt.
• The state would like to turn the road over, with some set amount of money, and let the cities deal with the rebuilding.
• Waterloo and Cedar Falls want University fixed first, before it becomes their responsibility.
• So it needs to be done, but neither side particularly wants it done on its watch. That doesn’t stop plans from being made, but it does affect the timetable or lack thereof.

I could be wrong, but that’s how it looks to me.

August 7, 2010:  Every I-540 shield in northwestern Arkansas north of I-40 was removed last week and replaced with I-49.

Although there is no connection yet to I-49 in Missouri, and any construction south of I-40 will likely take decades to occur, Arkansas has gone ahead and renumbered I-540 from I-40 to Bentonville as Interstate 49.

• Story from the Arkansas News
• TV story from KFSM and a second story
• TV story about opening ceremony from KHBS (autoplay)

The I-49 designation actually goes up a few more exits than I-540 used to, but Arkansas, being Arkansas, removed the US 71 shields along that stretch. Arkansas has a pathological aversion to signing US routes along interstates, no matter the shared distance. (In fact, especially if it’s a long shared distance.)

On a sad note, like in Missouri, these I-49 shields do not have the state name on them. I really hope Iowa is not following suit with neutered shields.

How highway-clinchers handle this situation will depend on personal preference. For me, I now consider the road untraveled and will need to go on it again.

The DOT’s document archive is a wealth of information, most of the dry engineering type, but also more about signs and construction maps.

Through that, I discovered one thing I never knew and one I wondered about in Iowa’s 400-series highways:

• There was a preliminary plan to extend IA 401 north and then east, across the then-being-built Saylorville Dam and on Oralabor Road. Aside from one very-large file, there’s nothing else about it.
• In the signage plans for I-380’s northernmost segment in 1983, the BGSs included IA 412 with San Marnan Drive. They were crossed out at some point before final erection, though, and 412 was decommissioned by the end of 1983. The initial sign plan also did not put US 20 on the interstate. Instead, the freeway going west from the 380/20 interchange was labeled only as “To 21”. That changed in 1986.

I have included a clip of the sign diagram for San Marnan at 380, including where “End 412” would have gone, on that page.