May 18, 2017: From the interchange at the south end of IA 922/Business 151. These shields have been replaced with the new wide style and small arrows. The Business 151 page has a bunch of new photos BTW.
The Iowa DOT, freed from its maintenance of spur routes and low-traffic highways in 2003, appears to have a decommissioning strategy the past few years. Urban arterials have been prime candidate for deletion, and it’s easy to see why: They don’t carry much long-distance traffic, it cuts out lots of lane miles for the distance involved, and then cities are free to reshape the roads as they please (or as they need, with underlying infrastructure issues).
- Perhaps the most known and longest-issue case is University Avenue in Cedar Falls and Waterloo (IA 934), which feels like the state wanted to unload since it re-established jurisdiction in 1998. The state paid Waterloo $28 million (PDF) — $1873.86 per foot — to be rid of that portion.
- Business US 169 (IA 926) was turned over to Fort Dodge in 2014.
- IA 92 was rerouted around Muscatine when Mississippi Drive was transferred to the city (PDF).
- West Broadway in Council Bluffs — a road that, as the Lincoln Highway, pre-dated the state system — was transferred to the city of Council Bluffs in 2016, along with the north half of IA 192, and earlier this month the rest of 192 followed. For now, at least, Kanesville Boulevard remains under state control.
- When the Southwest Arterial is completed in Dubuque in 2019, US 52 will be rerouted onto it. Central Avenue and the one-way pairs downtown that carry it and IA 3 will be given to the city.
- Not transferred to city control, at least not yet: Business 61 through Davenport, now IA 461.
Untouched in all of this is Business US 151 in Cedar Rapids, which is IA 922, nearly 9 miles long. It’s all urban arterial surface street, four or five lanes throughout. There is an ongoing construction project on the northern part of the route, 27th Street to 40th Street.
Combined with earlier work, this is putting the north half of the route in pretty good condition. So how about talking about a turnover? The state could dead-end the 922 designation at the end of the construction, or farther southwest, maintaining the 1st Avenue Bridge and the Williams Boulevard portion.
(This is all speculation, if it’s not clear. There is no discussion about this at the moment, yet it seems like something that should be, especially as the state will add Linn County mileage with the IA 100 bypass. I suggested the same thing regarding US 69 between Des Moines and Ankeny as it is upgraded this year.)