Just in time for Labor Day, the Iowa DOT is opening the final new ramps for the I-80/I-380 interchange. This project is ending three months ahead of schedule, the DOT said in an e-mail Tuesday. KWWL reported it happened by noon Thursday.
The northbound US 218 to westbound 80 ramp and westbound 80 to southbound 218 ramps are the last ones, the DOT said. The latter is the lower-most ramp of the interchange, going under the mainlines, “and our engineering and construction teams have focused efforts on optimizing the drainage for this ramp, making it safe during rain events,” the DOT said. Minor work and cleanup will continue in the area.
A ribbon-cutting was held last Friday on the NB 218-to-WB-80 ramp. I was not there because no one told me. As far as I am able to tell, KCRG had a tiny blurb at 5:09 AM that day for the ribbon-cutting at 10 AM and that’s it. (I link, but there’s no video there because at the time of this post, “undefined is not an object” applies to every video image.) There was no announcement sent via the e-mail subscription that I got the ramp notice from. KCRG’s evening story is posted on YouTube.