Iowa Highway Ends (etc.)

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 95 in New Jersey. Sadly, it didn’t get nearly the attention I thought it should have.

This weekend, on the other side of the country, Seattle is having a grand opening for the State Route 99 tunnel under the heart of the city. The Alaskan Way Viaduct was built in 1953 as part of US 99* but age and earthquake damage necessitated a replacement. It took four years for “Big Bertha”, the tunnel-digging machine, to do its work.

But progress comes at a price. The tunnel will start out free and then tolls will be imposed. This is like the new I-65 bridge over the Ohio River at Louisville, which opened for free (and needed to be while construction was going on), but then tolls began two days before New Year’s Day 2017. Unfortunately, this tactic is cumbersome and confusing to drivers who do not live in the area, because there are no toll booths and drivers without compatible toll transponders have to pay up to double the price. (Oh, and the transponders may not work in cold weather.)

The federal gas tax hasn’t been raised in more than a quarter-century.

*There was a semi-famous-in-roadgeek-circles “Southbound US 99” sign remaining at the viaduct until the end, seen at the 1:18 mark in the news story below.

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 don’t know how long yet.

The Sioux City Journal has an article about the Woodbury County Board of Supervisors’ meeting earlier this month that pitted replacement of a county road bridge just north of Moville vs. repaving the frontage road on the south side of Moville. The supervisors stuck with the plan to replace the bridge this year.

But that frontage road is very important, too. Its mile or so length retains the concrete that was poured in 1924 for the road between Moville and Correctionville. The short piece of US 20 that was four-laned in the 1950s bypassed this segment just to the south.

The very interesting thing is, this appears to be one of the first bypasses, if not THE first, of already existing pavement. A DOT report “100 Years of Concrete Pavement in Iowa” reproduces a list of pavements before 1922. The last entry says “Thru Moville. Later abandoned for a route through the S. city limits.” The original route was on Main Street, continuing east on what is now 150th Street, then south on Ida Avenue. The paving in 1924 favored the south route and angled the road that today branches off from the pre-2018 end of the four-lane.

(Another known case of early pavement being bypassed: The Lincoln Highway/US 30 moved to the south side of the railroad tracks to bypass Mechanicsville in Linn County. Mechanicsville had already paved the road through the city.)