Iowa Highway Ends (etc.)

Sidewalks are a good thing to have. In many towns, though, they could use some freshening up. However, a simple plan for improvements sooner or later will encounter the Americans With Disabilities Act. (And then there’s Windsor Heights, whose residents never had them and really really don’t want them.)

The state is ready to replace sidewalks along IA 9 and IA 76 in Waukon, but there’s a catch: Many trees that sit between the sidewalk and the road will have to be removed. One side of one block alone (PDF) will lose half a dozen trees.

There will be a nice place to walk and ride bikes, but no leafy mature trees to provide shade and pretty colors. Such is the nature of tradeoffs. (On the other hand, if they’re ash trees, perhaps it’s a blessing in disguise.)

In the Transportation Commission’s March meeting this week, a transfer of jurisdiction for US 61 in Des Moines County was approved.

But here’s the thing: It’s not the recently rerouted portion of 61 (which was in Louisa County). It’s not a project that will happen this year. This transaction was nearly $1 million for a road whose four-laning won’t be completed until 2021. As seen in the large environmental assessment (PDF) from 2015 that covers the expressway from Burlington to IA 78, not all of old 61 will be incorporated into new 61, nor will all of it be left behind. Part of it will be close enough to the new route to require little hiccups* to accommodate bridges, and part will be obliterated.

The EA linked above includes the Mediapolis bypass and four-lane 61 from there to Wapello, which are both only beginning to trickle into the five-year plan.

*Is there an actual term for this? I’m referring to where an otherwise straight-line frontage road has to curve. If there isn’t, I nominate “hiccup”.

A DOT public meeting earlier this week (postponed from earlier because of bad weather) laid out two “study areas” for a US 30 bypass of Missouri Valley, and one of them is off the beaten path.

Like, way off.

Like, redirecting 30 from Logan westward to Modale off.

I can see why there’s an interest in moving 30 out of downtown Missouri Valley, but a bypass that far north would not help anyone. Assuming a new connection is not built southwestward from Modale, a LOT of drivers would choose to follow K45 to continue west, and that has quite a few curves on it. It simply does not make sense to divert 30 back southeast on I-29 to acquire the old route. Plus, that alignment would cut straight through part of the Loess Hills instead of following the Boyer River valley like 30 does today.

A southern bypass makes way, way more sense. It’s close enough to the existing corridor that it wouldn’t be out of the way. Most of it would be in a floodplain (which, admittedly, has its own issues) and wouldn’t require knocking down many hills. Any bypass there would include two new railroad bridges.

I think the blue route on this map (PDF) is the way to go. For historical preservation purposes, it pulls “new 30” off a couple more miles of the original Lincoln Highway, but it also takes some kinks out, and the integrity of the road heading into Missouri Valley would remain.

Johnson Avenue in western Cedar Rapids carried the Lincoln Highway, and then US 30, until 1940. Back then, it was outside the city. Nowadays, it’s a minor urban arterial that’s about to be reduced in capacity.

The city of Cedar Rapids is using Johnson Avenue as a guinea pig in a “complete streets” program. According to the Gazette, the street will be reduced to two lanes with bike lanes and have roundabouts at Wiley Boulevard and Jacolyn Drive. There’s a cost savings in the change; the Wiley roundabout will be $91,000 less than having a stoplight, the story says.

There are other roads in the city where one or both of those things are going to be done to them, too (see list at link).

As far as I know, this is the first second time roundabouts have been installed on any era of Lincoln Highway alignment in Iowa.

UPDATE 4/16: Marion’s new roundabouts on either end of downtown put one on the 1913 route (now part of a loop) — the west one at 7th Avenue and 7th Street.

First, from the Illinois DOT, the implosion of the Savanna-Sabula bridge Friday:

Second, from the Iowa DOT last year, a video rendering of the construction process for the replacement overflow bridge that was closed Feb. 26:

The 1932 Savanna-Sabula bridge is to be imploded somewhere around the time this blog post goes live, according to a press release from the Illinois DOT. With the closing of access to the new bridge nearly two weeks ago because of replacement of a different bridge, there won’t be any need to hold up traffic across the river, just a short delay on IL 84.

September 27, 2015: Mississippi River Overflow Bridge entering Sabula on US 52/IA 64.

The new Sabula-Savanna bridge over the Mississippi River got about three and a half months of an opening run. A nearby bridge on the Iowa side, for Mississippi River overflow, was closed at the end of February because of a “construction issue”. With the nearest crossing at Clinton, it’s going to feel like a long wait until construction on a new overflow bridge finishes around Memorial Day.

But there is help available. KWWL says an 88-year-old is offering free crossings on his pontoon boat. You can’t take your car, but you can get across in 20 minutes.

After finding a picture for this blog post, it struck me: Is this the last overhead truss bridge that remained on an active state-maintained highway? I’m referring to this specific design, I think it’s a Pratt truss, that was common for pre-Depression bridges all across Iowa. (IA 9 at Lansing, obviously, is a truss, but that’s a special case.) It would require some deep digging into the bridge database (the one I have is from 2012 and it’s a bear to open), but it’s certainly one of very few.