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.