Jul 11

Psst…want a black market brownie?

Posted on Thursday, July 11, 2019, at 10:00 AM by Jeff

The Newton school district has banned homemade snacks and treats for fear of “allergies”, reports the Newton Daily News.

Forget fireworks; now the Iowa Legislature needs to legalize bake sales.

In unrelated news, something special may or may not have been put in the brownies for the voters in the Big 12 football preseason poll — although, technically, ISU tied for third last season.

UPDATE: An exceptionally tangentially related item. I don’t know how long this has been the case, but at Hickory Park in Ames, nuts have been removed as a default ingredient from the dessert menu’s extensive ice cream concoctions.

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Jul 10

Floyd interchange plans released

Posted on Wednesday, July 10, 2019, at 10:00 AM by Jeff

A DOT meeting July 16 will go over plans to build an interchange at the US 18/218 intersection on the south side of Floyd. The plans and a silent video rendering are already available.

The four-lane will stay almost in the same position but it will be elevated. Nearly all work is set for fiscal 2022, so that maybe that means some dirt will be moved in late 2021. I admit not knowing that for sure, since the most immediate analogues — the US 65/IA 330 interchange and the US 30/218 interchange — made the cross-road the overpass, not the mainline. The westbound offramp (i.e. northbound 218 exiting from the Avenue of the Saints) will start near where the Love’s truck stop sign with the fuel prices is now.

When it is complete, every intersection of US 218 with another US route except in Lee County will be grade-separated.

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Jul 09

Relocated IA 17 will maintain corners

Posted on Tuesday, July 9, 2019, at 10:00 AM by Jeff

The plans for changing IA 17 east of Boone are available. The meeting is Thursday at United school. The final decision was the “Red plan” from a set of proposals three years ago.

According to the maps, IA 17 will continue straight north for an additional mile from where it meets E41 today, then go east on 200th Street. There will be a bridge for 17 across E41 and the railroad tracks with a arcing connector. In addition, 200th Street will be paved west from new 17 to the Boone city limits.

This marks the end of a state intersection that has been around since at least 1930. Its exact history before that, though, is murky. I know that the Lincoln Highway did not parallel the railroad on the south side for a 2-mile segment between R Avenue and T Avenue; instead, it crossed the railroad and used 205th Street, then continued east to Ames via 210th Street. I don’t know if that was changed in the 1920s, because it would have involved building a new road for the end result of moving the place where the highway crossed the railroad.

The new 17’s east-west mile will be half a mile north of that original segment, and thus the known Lincoln Highway segment between 205th Street and the Jordan elevator will drop from the state rolls.

Notably, this plan does not make any special accommodations for the farm field on the southeast corner of the 17/E41 intersection, which is used as the parking lot for the Farm Progress Show/Central Iowa Expo grounds.

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Jul 08

An Ohio mapmaker with ‘creativity’ and ‘whimsy’

Posted on Monday, July 8, 2019, at 10:00 AM by Jeff

The AP has a neat little story about the man who’s been in charge of designing the non-highway area on the back of the Ohio state map for nearly 20 years. There’s a video*, too, about the Easter eggs he puts in the photo collages that feature his daughter.

I wish a little bit of that creativity would be applied to the actual map, though. In my opinion, Ohio’s state map (large PDF) does not rank high from a cartographic-design perspective. It’s hard to tell between two-lane state and US routes, for example. I feel like those two-lane lines should be a hair thicker, although given Ohio’s larger and more squiggly network that might not be possible. Insistence on using the state-shape shield at that scale may be a factor in the clutter as well, although I’m sure many Ohioans take its use as a point of pride.

*If the freaking Associated Press can’t use “free rei[g]n” correctly, we’re all doomed. But we already knew that.

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Jul 05

Three-lane projects pushed in Des Moines, Sioux City

Posted on Friday, July 5, 2019, at 10:00 AM by Jeff

Three-lane conversions are still getting substantial advocacy from the Iowa DOT.

In Des Moines, the city council has approved a pilot project to change Euclid Avenue (US 6) from four lanes to three for 10 blocks in the Oak Park and Highland Park neighborhoods. (The east end of the project, 2nd Avenue, is the junction of 6 and IA 415.) Parking spaces would be substituted for the through lanes. The KCCI story does not say if those spaces would be metered.

In Sioux City, the DOT wants to whack a lane off IA 12 in its southernmost two miles, from about the Military Road intersection to I-29. Unlike Des Moines, though, there are few intersections along the route. KTIV also reports the Americans with Disabilities Act is a factor.

The road diet revolt has gone better in some places than others. In Grundy Center, widespread opposition resulted in a packed community meeting where the DOT tried to justify its strategy, while saying such a change would not move forward without the city’s support. Some Waverly residents are begging the city to reverse its decision to make IA 3 three lanes.

One place the three-lane strategy isn’t happening is Sioux Center, where KIWA reports the idea is to expand US 75 through the city to five lanes, with the center lane as a turn lane with strategically placed dividers. In a place where there are a lot of businesses with their own driveways, I can see where center lanes would be a positive.

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Jul 03

‘Tama County Rejects Good Roads Program’

Posted on Wednesday, July 3, 2019, at 10:00 AM by Jeff

Traer Star-Clipper, July 4, 1919, non-capitalization in original:

“Tama county voted against hard roads Monday by 1,165 majority. Everybody familiar with what was going on knew several days before what the result would be. When the highway commission rejected Toledo’s plea to have the Lincoln highway changed to connect with that city the town went wild. It never showed so much energy in fifty years. It flooded the county with literature in opposition to the good roads program and sent propagandists to nearly every neighborhood. Hundreds did not understand the law, really believed that the Lincoln highway would all be paved first and voted now. Gladbrook, Lincoln, Clutier and Elberon felt they were not getting a fair deal and opposed Traer’s vote was nearly three to one in favor. Grant township went for paved roads. Tama rolled up a tremendous majority in favor, but Toledo largely offset it.”

The Star-Clipper was a big proponent of the Good Roads movement — “It will be a calamity if Tama county votes against the proposition,” the June 20 editorial said — in case you couldn’t tell from the tone above.

Ten years and two weeks later, Tama County approved $300,000 in bonds to pave IA 59, the road that became US 63, following $504,000 in 1926 that went to the Lincoln Highway.

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Jul 02

100th anniversary of Iowa ratifying 19th Amendment

Posted on Tuesday, July 2, 2019, at 10:00 AM by Jeff

Today marks 100 years since Iowa ratified the 19th Amendment to the Constitution, extending the right to vote to women. The amendment would be approved in time for the 1920 presidential election.

Here’s what Ella Taylor, wife and mother of the Traer Star-Clipper publishing team, who had her own weekly column, had to say on July 11:

The national equal suffrage amendment has not yet been ratified and may not be ratified by enough states to become a law, but already a change is felt in political circles which is interesting to study. Enough women will vote at the next presidential election that their votes may swing the balance of power. Hence from the standpoint of the male politician women become of enough importance to be consulted, cojoled [sic] and complimented. They are even to be organized for political work. Women will become a part of the national committees; they will have state, county and township organizations. It is safe to predict that the political aspirant for public office will be carrying cigars in one hand and candy in the other. We hope he will exercise due care not to get them mixed up. He will be willing to kiss the babies and he will throw bouquets at the growing-up daughters because he will recognize the voter of the future.

Not only are men beginning to take notice of this new condition, but women are also waking up. They are getting interested in candidates and party principles. They are studying citizenship. Some of the leaders in suffrage parties are already pretty skillful in the political game. They will be ready to teach the others in party tactics. Already letters have been sent out from national headquarters to prominent women in all the states asking them to ally themselves with one party or the other. Some of these women are lining up for action, but more are staying in the background, keeping their eyes open to developments but remaining neutral until they are sure “where they are at” or more properly speaking, where the parties are at.

And this is what the politicians do not like. They can’t find any basis to work upon. They are floundering rather hopelessly in circles because “they don’t know what the women are going to do.” This feature of the game rather pleases us. Poor men! They don’t dare to snub us, they can’t play the game without us and they don’t know how to play with us. For the first time in history we are important citizens. Let us keep them guessing awhile.

(Told you I was going to be mining the archives. — Ed.)

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Jul 01

Partial archives of Traer, Toledo papers posted online

Posted on Monday, July 1, 2019, at 10:00 AM by Jeff

The whereabouts of probably the only remaining existing copies of the Traer Star-Clipper dating back to its founding remain unknown since the newspaper office closed more than a year ago. But about four and a half years after I discovered the wonderful Advantage Preservation collections, the first 67 years of Traer’s weekly paper are now available in digitized microfilm.

Via a Facebook post from the Tama County Historical Society:

“We’re excited to announce the launch of Phase II in our historic newspaper digitization project! Visit http://tamacounty.advantage-preservation.com/ to now search the archives of the Traer Star-Clipper from 1874-1941, in addition to Toledo Chronicle archives from 1873-1925.

“Thank you to Traer Historical Museum, Traer Community Foundation, and our members for the generous support that made this possible!

More to come!”

Look what I found near the bottom of Page 10 of the May 14, 1915, Traer Star-Clipper:

“The plans have just been received from the state highway commission for the new cement bridge to be built across Jackson creek near Tama, at the entrance of the Lincoln Highway from the east. This will be the most beautiful Bridge in this part of the state. The Tama Commercial club will bear a part of the expense in order to have it meet their ideas of what a welcoming to the town should be. The grading has been completed on that part of the new Lincoln Highway lying east of the city limits and as soon as the bridge is ready for traffic this grade, at least, will be graveled. When this new road is opened there will be no cause for complaint on the condition of the Lincoln Highway in that vicinity.”

There’s going to be a lot more ahead. *squees again*

I’m a bit surprised that Tama’s not included yet, but give it time. Half a loaf is better than none.

Posted in Tama County | Comments Off on Partial archives of Traer, Toledo papers posted online
Jun 28

More detailed US 30 corridor study released

Posted on Friday, June 28, 2019, at 10:00 AM by Jeff

OLYMPUS DIGITAL CAMERA
July 6, 2013: Clarence is the only town between Missouri Valley and besides Clinton in eastern Iowa where US 30 still runs through its heart. How long will that remain the case?

Upgrading US 30 to four lanes between Lisbon and De Witt is a project that doesn’t have much in the way of similar things in Iowa highway construction.

For many other projects, relocation was a theoretically simpler affair. US 20 between Waterloo and Dubuque? Move the whole thing a mile and a half south. IA 60? Stay on the east side of the railroad and have square-ish bypasses where necessary. US 218? Fewer towns and water features. The best parallels might be US 151 and IA 163, with their non-straight routes, but even those are imperfect. Often, the where was easier settled than the how (and especially the when).

Now, in an update from the April meeting, documents released June 19 give a clearer picture of where bypasses might be, and it’s kind of a mess. We have a whole bunch of small communities that don’t cleanly stick to one side or the other, plus a parallel railroad that swaps sides, plus a water feature (Yankee Run) that closely parallels a sizable segment and a big ol’ spot of wetlands in the Wapsipinicon River area.

Either US 30 stays on the present alignment or goes a bit south of Mechanicsville, Stanwood, and Clarence, that’s pretty evident. Past there, far-north and far-south options have been sketched out. The former would miss the present road and railroad by a mile. The latter would, ironically, come back near or even on portions of the Lincoln Highway/pre-1956 alignment but destroy much of the structural integrity of that route. (What I mean is, trying to follow what’s left of the LH would be a nightmare. I need a better term for this.)

This won’t get past the “commencing to proceed to get started” stage for a while, but the revised study area gives more detail on where to look.

UPDATE 3/3/21: Never too late to fix a grievous error, right? D’oh. Sorry, Carroll, Denison, and Logan.

Posted in Construction | Comments Off on More detailed US 30 corridor study released
Jun 27

DOT’s document portal redesign has some bugs

Posted on Thursday, June 27, 2019, at 10:00 AM by Jeff

It’s entirely possible that the number of non-Iowa DOT employees who regularly visit the online construction plans archive can be counted on one hand. (The link only works if you make sure the www is at the beginning.) But, as you may have noticed, I’m one of them.

On the one hand, I shouldn’t complain. The stuff I have found there would be impossible to stumble upon and incredibly time-consuming to comb through (and move, and photograph) the originals. There was a short time where it didn’t work on Macs at all and that was thankfully fixed. But over last weekend the user interface changed just enough to be annoying.

The view window is taller than my browser/screen resolution, which means vertical scrolling is involved between a zoom and a horizontal scroll. I had been able to rapid-triple-click to zoom, but zooming in now requires two clicks (click on magnifying glass, then select zoom in) and you have to make sure each one takes. The pages are available in a continuous scroll now, but if you look at more than two it un-zooms. The base-level renderings are not as crisp as they used to be, making it more difficult to interpret at a glance. There are a LOT more “image not available” alerts in the thumbnails, which may not seem like a problem until the umpteenth time looking for something particular and getting an erosion control project from the ’80s instead.

Finally, and most worrisome, I’m getting this quite often — and my browser doesn’t recognize the existence of a file to download.

filetoobig

Again, yes, I’m probably being overly annoyed, and the change may have not been a choice. But dang it, why does every “upgrade” nowadays make things just a little bit harder?

UPDATE 6/30: The previous zoom controls are back, BUT THEY REMOVED THE OPTION TO DOWNLOAD ONE PAGE AT A TIME.

*repeatedly drops forehead onto table*

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