August 6, 2004: From 2002 to 2016, this view was looking east on Army Post Road to IA 28, whereupon the street changed designation to Old Army Post Road. IA 28 then “re-intersected” the new Army Post Road to the southeast.
(Well, it’s news to me anyway. — Ed.)
In a pair of posts from 2014 and 2016, I noted the incongruities created by modifications to Army Post Road on the south side of Des Moines and West Des Moines. Each city now had two places where “the intersection of [north-south road] and Army Post Road” plausibly, technically existed. West Des Moines “fixed” that by giving the eastern part of its segment a new name.
Then, shortly after a project replaced an old state bridge with a culvert near the airport, Des Moines did almost the same thing. ALMOST. While WDM called it “Willow Creek Drive,” in Des Moines the “Drive” name designation applies to a certain category of road. So on October 24, 2016, Des Moines named Old Army Post Road from 63rd Street east to 42nd Street… Willow Creek Avenue. The road goes by Willow Creek Golf Course.
As late as the mid-’90s, Army Post Road was a straight shot across the southern part of Polk County. Now, in order to follow an east-west road from Fleur Drive to its dead-end near I-35 without dropping to the beltway, you have to make four turns and the street name will change at least four times (Army Post Road*, Willow Creek Avenue, Willow Creek Crive, Veterans Parkway, Army Post Road).
*Based solely on the street signs overhead on the stoplights, the part of IA 28 between old and new Army Post was also named Army Post Road, maintaining a continuity with the road that went past the intersection with 63rd/1st streets. I don’t know if the city of Des Moines has dropped the dual designation with 28, or if “Army Post Road” now terminates at the T intersection just southwest of the airport.