Since the day John F. Kennedy gave his historic moon speech at Rice University, Rice football is 2-42-1 against Texas…and Iowa State football is 1-42-1 against Oklahoma. (Link goes to my Oklahoma essay.)
This convergence won’t last, though, because Rice-Texas only has one game in the foreseeable future (2015) and Iowa State will play Oklahoma every year. (Also, note the 42.)
I’ve cleared out the “proposed” section of the Fort Dodge Business 20 page, and replaced it with a lot of pictures of the new interchange at the west end. My previous rough sketch, based on the DOT’s 2005 proposal, ended up remarkably close to the final result.
I also added a couple pictures to the IA 926/Business US 169 page. Most notably, the sign facing south on 169 at the Business 20 intersection still points to Fort Dodge on the left (east), but no longer has a distance.
The IA 2 page has a paragraph reflecting the recent changes in Fort Madison.
It’s the slow season for the blog; outside of whatever might pop up in the Legislature, road and school news is pretty quiet. Posts may be more sporadic. But here are some stories that caught my eye:
Iowa City Press-Citizen: Clear Creek Amana meeting on future growth. Included if only for this phrase: Tiffin and North Liberty are “growing like gerbils,” he said during the meeting, and it’s important for the district to plan for growth.
Muscatine Journal: Morning Sun, one of the few K-6 districts still sending older students to multiple schools, now may have agreements of varying length with its neighbors, and Wapello wants more information.
Carroll Daily Times Herald: This story is from September. IKM-Manning is having a study done to see which, if any, buildings in the district should be closed.
As the Register reported Wednesday, the Iowa Secretary of State’s office has a page with links to all 99 county voting precinct maps. However, not all the maps are locally hosted. Some links go to maps hosted on the individual counties’ websites.
Tama County’s map hasn’t changed much in a while, I don’t think. Notice the separate “Indian Settlement” precinct. (Also, “Yorl”?)
I guess Iowa State will need to win a few more games to avoid trip-ups like this on SI’s website. (It’s right in the header, wrong in the sidebar.)
Meanwhile, there’s this nice AP article about ISU’s teams, mostly focusing on the women.
August 4, 2010: Where should I begin about these oddly shaped shields? This gantry in Tulsa at the east I-44/I-244 split has the state name on the markers, but that’s the only good thing about them. The font doesn’t look quite right, and the shield dimensions are very wrong. Then, US 412 is involved, which is one of the major violations of the US route numbering system.
This photo is an attempt to think warm thoughts; it was 105° that day in Oklahoma.
When it gets below 250 Kelvin, you know you’re in trouble. Remember, being cold builds character.
Des Moines’ three lowest highs for Jan. 6 are -10, -3, and a balmy 1 above; Waterloo’s are -15, -6, and -5. Monday’s temperature will certainly place down there. Many, if not all, Iowa schools get one day more of vacation.
And because there was a “Star Wars” marathon on TV over the weekend:
UPDATE: At about 5 AM in Marshalltown it was real temperature -16, wind chill -45. Two hours later it was -17, wind chill -43.
When the Iowa Department of Transportation released its redesigned homepage in July, I was very disgruntled. I saw the triumph of style over substance, a three-button splash screen that obscured more than it helped. (In other words, I had the complete opposite reaction of this guy.)
So when word leaked out that the agency was also pursuing a rebranding/logo redesign, I was concerned. Besides the standard case of “if it ain’t broke, don’t fix it”, there was also the perception of spending money for that while needing more for construction. In the state’s defense, $100,000 over five years is less than what is spent on washing important bridges on the state lines, and the total would be only a fraction of the cost of one bridge overlay.
The result probably isn’t that bad except —
OMG WE’RE PLAYING BUZZWORD BINGO.
At least there are versions without the tagline.
December 18, 2006: Near the foot of the Burlington Northern Santa Fe railroad bridge across the Mississippi River in Fort Madison, all three components of this sign assembly have changed: US 61 is now Business 61, the Hiawatha Pioneer Trail has been deleted, and IA 2 now ends on the west side of town.
Buried in the Iowa Transportation Commission’s approved revisions to the 2014-18 five-year plan (PDF), and noted in a line at the commission’s Nov. 12 meeting, was this line item:
Transfer of Jurisdiction – Iowa 2 in Fort Madison
Iowa’s fourth-longest east-west state highway no longer runs from state line to state line. I have received word that the route has been truncated to end at the US 61 bypass on the west side of Fort Madison. In addition, Business 61/old 61 north of IA 2 has also been transferred.
There’s an Iowa transportation quirk that has enabled this transfer to happen: The state does not own the auto/rail bridge across the Mississippi River. It was constructed in 1927 for the Atchison Topeka and Santa Fe Railroad, and is now a BNSF/Amtrak line. Thus, the state can turn over the entire route of old US 61 without leaving an “orphan bridge”.
Except for the section between 35th and 48th streets, US 61 and IA 2 (formerly IA 3) always ran along Avenue L and Avenue H. They changed at 18th Street, and later also at 20th with a switch to one-ways. Avenue L is important to Iowa history because it runs on the easternmost extent of the Sullivan Line, used to delineate the Iowa-Missouri border west of the Des Moines River and the Half-Breed Tract in Lee County. The rural part of the line is still used today to split “North Lee County” and “South Lee County” jurisdiction because both Fort Madison and Keokuk are county seats.
The IA 2 page will be updated to reflect this.
