Category Archives: Highway Miscellaneous

I raided Jason Hancock’s Flickr galleries (with his permission) to see if there were any gems that could augment these pages. They were taken at various points in the past decade, but they’re new here. At least one new photo, … Continue reading →

October 3, 2018: One of the new generation of signs near one of Iowa’s two quadplex routes, the Mount Pleasant bypass. Blessedly, the Series D font is appropriate for the wide shields, which is the case much less often than it … Continue reading →

I don’t know if the Iowa DOT is attempting to impose or merely strongly suggesting that small cities get their main thoroughfares changed from four lanes (two in each direction) to three (one in each direction with a center turn … Continue reading →

When a major highway project happens in a big city anymore (and by “big” I mean “pro-team caliber”), the news is notable precisely because it doesn’t happen that often. Last year, for example, we had the long-long-long-term completion of Interstate … Continue reading →

The previous post talked about a bridge on Correctionville Road being the last rural remnant of very early paving on the road that became US 20 in Woodbury County. There’s one urban remnant, too, whose time is limited but we … Continue reading →

The Iowa Transportation Commission is having its first meeting of the year today in Ames. The agenda is the most pedestrian possible. (Where’s the transfer of jurisdiction of those weird stubs still under state control?) But off camera, so to … Continue reading →

I am a fan of Exit Zero. Not everyone is. Mile markers begin at the south or west terminus of a route or the state line. When the route has an interchange at that terminus, it should follow that the … Continue reading →

The 1931 Iowa highway map includes an explosion of highway numbers across the state, in what I call the First Great Commissioning. Many of the routes that died in either 1980 or 2003 trace their history to this time. But … Continue reading →