Iowa Highway Ends (etc.)

The second of two intersections on US 30 between the United school and the IA 17 interchange will be converted to a right-in-right-out intersection within a year. The meeting was in April. The diagram is here.

The intersection with T Avenue, which goes north to meet IA 17 at the latter’s now-relocated east-west jog, has already been turned into right-in-right-out for westbound traffic, eliminating eastbound left turns. Now the intersection with 230th Street, which goes west to IA 17 before 30 curves northward, will have its median removed. Then only eastbound traffic will be able to turn there.

I could see a case for full closures at both intersections, but that wouldn’t eliminate the most important one on that stretch of 30. That’s a mile east at U Avenue, which is the access for both United school and the ISU Agricultural Engineering and Agronomy Research Farms. It wouldn’t be impossible to create a bridge/frontage road system to make the stretch of 30 between the IA 17 and Lincoln Way exits into controlled-access, just expensive. It would be slightly less work than what’s going on between Ames and Nevada, and we know how complicated that has been.

The DOT is having a meeting Thursday at Jester Park in Granger regarding changes to access to IA 141, with new construction. The plan wouldn’t make the highway controlled-access, but it wouldn’t be uncontrolled access either. The project would take place in 2025.

It’s a lot of work to solve a trouble spot: The intersection of IA 141 and NW 121st Street, between the IA 415 and IA 17 interchanges. Here’s a story from WHO in 2013 about a crash there that sent three people to the hospital. That story says additional warning blinkers had recently been posted.

By the middle of 2019, contractor Snyder & Associates had created a plan with multiple options. The first was a stoplight at the intersection, which carried an “elevated risk of high-speed high-severity crashes” due to its location. The second was a J-turn, which Iowans in other places have strongly opposed. There’s additional background about the process on Snyder’s website on an undated page. Last December, Axios had a story covering part of this project, in regards to the fact that partially closing 121st’s intersection with 141 would block the most direct route to Jester Park Golf Course.

A slightly modified version of Snyder’s third option (large PDF) is what’s on the table for the meeting Thursday. This one has a lot of parts:

• Build a new NW 110th Street between IA 415 and NW 106th Avenue a mile to the north, with the option of making it a four-lane arterial later
• Build a new connector, NW 101st Avenue, between NW 121st Street and the new NW 110th (not just an extension on the section line, for some reason)
• Close the north side of the 141/121st intersection, which turns it into a T intersection of 141 and the south side of 121st, but all turns from the T would be permitted, and turn lanes would be built for 141 to southbound 121st
• Close the intersection of NW 114th Street and NW 106th Avenue to the north, as it will be too close to the new 110th/106th intersection
• Close the west side of 141’s intersection with NW Towner Drive to the south of IA 415, making the north-side Beaver Creek Golf Club intersection a T
• Disconnect median crossovers on 141 at a few private intersections and also NW 102nd Avenue and NW 119th Court, making those right-in-right-out situations

The 2024-28 draft five-year plan puts a $12.667 million price tag on the project, up from just over $10 million in the 2023-27 plan.

A “full build” option from 2019, extending IA 415’s pavement from the interchange westward to NW 121st Street, which also included work at the intersection of IA 415 and NW Beaver Drive, is not part of the plan in Thursday’s meeting.

One note about a minor intersection in Marshall County has led me to investigate the status of an even more minor location.

The Marshall County Board of Supervisors approved turning the intersection of E35 (Main Street Road) and T37 (Zeller Road) into a four-way stop, the Marshalltown Times-Republican reports. This intersection is a slightly odd case, county-road-wise, because the paved road makes a turn. Because of this, the county engineer said, “your brain just thinks that rock road must stop, and it doesn’t.”

The Marshall County engineer told the supervisors that he plans to pave Main Street Road east from the intersection this summer. This is interesting because the road on other side of the county line isn’t much. Main Street Road turns into gravel 290th Street on the Tama County side and wobbles its way southeast to C Avenue and then T47.

South of the intersection, T37 goes to Le Grand. There is an abandoned bridge at a skew to the road, and it was used into the 1950s. Looking at that bridge made me scroll a little westward, and a completely unrelated road got interesting.

Three Bridges Road connects E35 to Quarry Road, except that it doesn’t. Sometime in the 1980s, a bridge on the road was closed. The bridge remains in place, but I can’t look up any information at the moment. Bridgehunter’s website is in the midst of a radical redesign that’s adding dynamic elements, something that often ends in pain for everyone involved.

As late as the 2013 Marshall County map, a bridge icon was at the location with a road going over it. The 2022 county map does not show any bridges on Three Bridges Road, but does show a continuous road north of Quarry. That should be dead-ended and the line between the intersection of Three Bridges and Yates roads and the stream removed.