Sep 11

Johnston annexation puts it on the state highway system

Posted on Tuesday, September 11, 2018, at 10:00 AM by Jeff

The State of Iowa City Development Board meeting tomorrow includes an annexation by the city of Johnston. Based on a notice from earlier this year, Johnston is making plans to bring a portion of the IA 141 corridor under its control. (Many links in this blog post are to PDFs.)

Currently, Johnston’s west edge is about NW 107th Street. This will take the city out to IA 141 in two places: Around the IA 415 interchange, and a mile-long segment north of but not touching Grimes. This is kind of atypical, because many city annexations of the past two decades or so have explicitly excluded/stopped at highway right-of-ways. Bondurant, at this same CDB meeting, is doing a mini-annexation beside the intersection of US 65 where NE 80th Street angles away, but not including the bit of 65 that’s right beside it.

This will give Johnston an even weirder city limits outline. Only part of Camp Dodge is officially inside Johnston. Much of the square mile northeast of the intersection of NW 86th Street and NW 70th Avenue isn’t included, for reasons that escape me. There’s also a railroad right-of-way notch. This annexation goes after the part of Camp Dodge west of 100th Street, because it is necessary to make the desired areas contiguous with the city. (There’s also a parcel owned by the … Department of the Navy?)

There’s one other super quirk here. With this annexation specifically pulling in the IA 415 interchange, part of the state highway system will be inside Johnston city limits for the first time since IA 401 was decommissioned. IA 401 kept Johnston connected after IA 141 was moved west from Beaver Drive and Merle Hay Road onto the four-lane that ends at Rider Corner.* The only state-maintained road inside the city limits until approval of this annexation is part of the ramp system in the northeast corner of the NW 86th Street interchange, which was built after the lines were set. Officially, Johnston does not touch the I-35/80 mainline.

*Urbandale doesn’t want us to call it that anymore. Good luck with that.

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Sep 10

RVTV last week in Diagonal

Posted on Monday, September 10, 2018, at 10:00 AM by Jeff

For those of you not familiar with WHO’s RVTV, where the sports staff (and Ed Wilson) travel across central Iowa before the Iowa-ISU game, here are some clips from the Labor Day stop in Diagonal. There was enough small-town/small-school goodness in here I felt it had to be blogged, even a week late.

(Missed a golden chance for a “Smokin’ in the Boys’ Room” audio cue there.)

(The girls’ basketball coach married the boys’ basketball coach! And recently, too! So cliche yet so obvious!)

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Sep 07

ISU-Iowa preview

Posted on Friday, September 7, 2018, at 10:00 AM by Jeff

(Is this the most obvious answer? Yes. But abbreviated Hate Weeks always feel cheapened. The original story, in case you forgot.)

ISU officially hasn’t scored any touchdowns this season, but touchdowns are not necessarily required for winning.

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Sep 06

Viola school finally meets the wrecking ball

Posted on Thursday, September 6, 2018, at 10:00 AM by Jeff


June 18, 2015: The school in Viola closed in 1998. Open image in new tab for larger version.

After 20 years of a slow then accelerated decay, the school in the unincorporated Linn County town of Viola is coming down. Demolition began Aug. 16, the Anamosa Journal-Eureka reports. The property’s owners gave lots of consideration to restoration, but by the time they got a hold of it the 1922 building and later addition were too far gone.

“Do not annoy the squirrels” didn’t make the cut.

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Sep 05

‘Saving Engeldinger Marsh’

Posted on Wednesday, September 5, 2018, at 10:00 AM by Jeff

Here is the conservationists’ side of why the US 65 “Marsh Kink” exists on the diagonal highway northeast of Bondurant. Deciding what to do about this wetland delayed construction of the four-lane. The old road mostly exists, except for a crucial piece in the middle.

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Sep 04

Sabula bridge is back

Posted on Tuesday, September 4, 2018, at 10:00 AM by Jeff

After fears the bridge across the Mississippi River at Sabula wouldn’t be open until Thanksgiving, construction on the overflow finished last week and it opened Friday (Aug. 31), the Quad-City Times reports. (Also WHBF, with a warning of autoplay video and the absence of a station identity on the website.)

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Aug 31

ISU-SDSU preview

Posted on Friday, August 31, 2018, at 10:00 AM by Jeff

(In lieu of playing “Sports Song” again.)

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Aug 30

Once-key Waterloo intersection being rebuilt

Posted on Thursday, August 30, 2018, at 10:00 AM by Jeff

The intersection of Franklin Street and First Street just to the north of downtown Waterloo is going to have major work done on it, the Iowa DOT says in a press release. That starts the day after Labor Day and is related to the project turning the US 63 railroad underpass into an overpass.

Franklin Street was the pre-freeway route of US 20 through central Waterloo, and after some bridge shuffling, the intersections with First and Mullan Avenue became 63’s intersections with 20. For a couple years after the freeway opened the spot was the east end of IA 57, which had taken over 20’s route. All of that is in my Waterloo/Cedar Falls Highway Chronology.

I need to refresh photos in the Waterloo area, and probably should have in 2016 before the signs that were left at this intersection came down, but that’s going to need to wait until work like this is finished up.

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Aug 29

State Fair lifehack pays off

Posted on Wednesday, August 29, 2018, at 10:00 AM by Jeff

How about that. I’ve never been to the Old Threshers Reunion, so I’m looking forward to it.

IF

The “lifehack” is: Bring a column of address labels to put on entry forms.

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Aug 28

Danville, Clarksville not fielding own football teams

Posted on Tuesday, August 28, 2018, at 10:00 AM by Jeff

Danville, near Burlington, forfeited half of its football games in 2016. Last year, it did a last-minute deal to participate with West Burlington/Notre Dame (itself one of the weirder sharing setups in Iowa). Despite only having 27 players out for football last year, overall enrollment is too big for the Bears to go 8-player.

Last school year, Danville looked for a future participation partner — but neighboring New London is doing 8-player near the upper limit. Danville had to set up a deal with Mount Pleasant instead. KILJ radio covered the December 2017 school board meeting when that deal was agreed to.

(As an aside, New London’s football district area is huge, covering every 8-player school south of I-80 and east of US 63. All of them except New London spent time in a district with North Tama in the 2000s, including five of the ten in 2004-05 Class A District 5.)

Also last December, Clarksville and North Butler set up a football sharing agreement. This is advantageous to both schools because North Butler had to forfeit some games late in the season because of player injuries, and now the combined team will be able to play 11 again, in Class 1A.

The Clarksville Star story says the team will be North Butler/Clarksville. That’s right, NBC … while, if they’d done it 15 years ago with Allison-Bristow, it would have been ABC.

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