Iowa Highway Ends (etc.)

The DOT released its newest five-year plan (large PDF) last week (stories: Gazette, Register) and the completion of two decade-long projects is in sight. Others have slight tweaks to their schedules or funding is being shifted around a bit in fiscal years.

• Three places on I-80 have more complicated entries than usual, implying that they could or will be upgraded to six lanes: US 169 to R16, the Skunk River area, around the IA 146 exit, Iowa City to West Branch, and the Cedar River to the Durant exit. Those are set for scattered years.
• A similar thing appears for I-35 north of IA 92, but if recent work is an indication, that may be done as “grade for six, stripe for four”. I-35 through the IA 160 interchange to the new north Ankeny exit, though, that for sure is getting six-laned in 2020. Then there’s some work scheduled in 2023 between Ankeny and IA 210 that would lead to six-laning that in 2024 or 2025.
• The Sioux City I-29 project will be finished in 2020.
• The Council Bluffs interstate project looks like it would be done in 2022. As of last August, construction on the last major portion, the I-29/I-480 interchange that also involves frontage roads and supplementary ramps, was set to start in 2020.
• Replacing those two will be the complete reconstruction of the I-80/I-380 interchange and another, larger, deeper reconfiguration of the Northeast Mixmaster starting in 2022.
• The I-74 bridge is so far along it’s only programmed for three years! As hard as it is to believe, it’s actually happening!
• On US 30, the four-laning in Tama County will be done in 2020, the IA 21 interchange in 2021, and the four-laning in Benton County in 2023. (Not soon enough! — Ed.) Unrelated but nearby, the big artificial hill created for US 218 to pass over the Milwaukee Railroad tracks abandoned in the 1980s will be shaved down in 2023 — five years after an elevation change just to the south when the Youngville interchange opens.
• Also in Benton County, the IA 150/363 intersection, which I thought was going to have its curve eliminated in the immediate future, won’t be rebuilt until 2022.
• Elsewhere on 30, at least one interchange is going to be built between I-35 and Nevada (2023), and the Mount Vernon-Lisbon bypass will be finished next year. Semi-notably, there’s nothing scheduled for 30 in Cedar County.
• Except for the Swiss Valley Road interchange in Dubuque County that will also modify the curve (2020), there’s no major work scheduled on US 20 — and that’s a good thing because it will be DONE!
• Meanwhile, the other major uncompleted four-lane corridor, US 61 in southeast Iowa, is planned for three stages working northward and may not be finished until 2030. The stages are, roughly, north side of Burlington to Mediapolis (2021, with clearing started this year), Mediapolis to IA 78 with bypass of the former and interchange at the latter (2024, based on a two-year delay after grading), and IA 78 to Grandview with Wapello bypass (not yet scheduled).
• I-380 will get a Forevergreen Road exit next year and a Tower Terrace Road exit in 2022.
• Finally, a surprise addition to Tama County, though not necessarily unexpected given a similar project north of Toledo this year: The shoulders on US 63 between Traer and Hudson will be half-paved in 2020. I’m still not sold on this concept, but it at least moves the point where asphalt can have a noticeable drop to gravel.

Those 3 1/2 months the new US 52 Mississippi River bridge was open are going to have to last a while, because construction nearby is getting worse.

KWQC reports that because of drilling issues on replacement of the overflow bridge, travelers won’t be able to go between Savanna and Sabula until November Labor Day. As I noted in March, the initial expectation was Memorial Day, but we’re two weeks out from that and there’s no bridge.