Public meetings on two big projects coming up

A project 40 years in the making and project that only seems like it will have been 40 years in the making are in line for Iowa DOT public meetings in the next week.

An in-person hearing on the US 30 Missouri Valley bypass is tomorrow in that city. A bypass was first proposed in the 1980s and got so far as to be included on five-year plans, then was shelved following an Army Corps of Engineers study and public opposition in 1991.

But non-construction then, plus lessons learned from three decades of intermittent flooding, offers an opportunity. “The timing of the Iowa DOT and USACE projects creates the potential to combine a portion of the new levees in the same location as the new US 30 corridor using a single embankment that combines the levees and roadway,” says the environmental assessment that is online already (large PDF).

The bypass on the south side of Missouri Valley will start just east of the I-29 interchange and end near the F58 intersection just south of the Welcome Center.

The other meeting, scheduled for next Tuesday, is about the Northeast Mixmaster in Des Moines. Work is imminent on the most pressing need, the I-35 northbound flyover ramp. A virtual meeting (and, I hope, PDFs) will be available online that day and afterward.

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