Iowa Highway Ends (etc.)

In 2019, a construction project on the west side of Clinton sealed off an old routing of US 30 that retained original concrete. Now another project in the same area is obliterating historic concrete altogether.

Reconstruction of Manufacturing Drive started in March and will last two years. The entire road from US 30 to College Avenue is being ripped up and replaced.

The city appears to believe that “some of the sections of the road are over 100 years old,” since reporters use that phrasing in both a Clinton Herald story and a WHBF story — and it’s not true. Manufacturing Drive is nearly 100 years old. It did not exist until it was built in 1931 as a new alignment of US 30.

Looking at Google Street View from 2022, some of the two-lane concrete along parts of Manufacturing Drive that has more visible aggregate (rocks) in its composition would date to 1931. Its age is harder to pinpoint either because the raised-edge “Iowa Curbs” have long ago been shorn off or because by that time, the curbs were no longer included. I haven’t tracked down that many pieces of extant Depression-era paving to know.

Bluff Boulevard, at least the section used as the Lincoln Highway (5th Avenue South to 19th Street), was paved in 1921. However, I completely doubt that any concrete in use today on that stretch is original, because there’s no visible aggregate, the road is too wide (it wouldn’t have been three lanes, let alone four), and it has modern drainage features.

This is another construction project discovered in preparation for the Lincoln Highway Middle Third Tour. If I’d known that the concrete was that old and was going to be lost, I would’ve taken pictures.

The IA 9/WI 82 Black Hawk Bridge across the Mississippi River at Lansing reopened Monday after being closed since May 17. The Iowa DOT said in its press release that another long-term closure is expected this summer and the water taxi service that was restarted for the just-ended unexpected closure will continue.

I have questions about this sequence of sentences from the Des Moines Register’s coverage:

The Black Hawk Bridge reopened on the morning of June 9. The bridge is the only way to cross the river in the nearly 60-mile stretch between La Crosse and Prairie du Chien, according to the Milwaukee Journal.

Residents on both sides of the river use the bridge for commuting between the two states.

The bridge is the only connection in a 60-mile stretch. The nearest bridges connect La Crosse, Wisconsin, and La Crescent, Minnesota, about 35 miles to the north or Marquette, Iowa, and Prairie du Chien, Wisconsin, about 30 miles to the south.

As a journalist, “attribute early, attribute often” is important, but the fact that the Black Hawk Bridge is the only crossing in a 60-mile stretch of the Mississippi River is just that, a verifiable fact. Secondly, why is it being restated in the same way two sentences later?

The interesting part of the DOT press release about the closure of US 30 west of Ogden starting Monday is that it mentions a concrete overlay project instead of the usual asphalt overlay.

But if you live anywhere in the area, or are going to be driving either road, the official detours for both US 30 and US 169 are looooong.

Southbound 169 between 30 and E57 will be the detour for westbound 30. Westbound E57 past Berkley to Rippey, and then IA 144 north to Grand Junction, will be the detour for westbound 30 and northbound 169. At that point 30 will resume its regular route while northbound 169 will continue its detour north on 144 to Dana and then east on E26.

The Lincoln Highway Middle Third Tour is avoiding this construction by following the 1914-1922 version of the route, which is one mile north of 30 on gravel 210th Street. The question is, how many local drivers will be doing the same thing?

Starting Monday, the IA 136 bridge over the Mississippi River will be closed until November. The Iowa DOT just says “repairs” in the press release and uses Google Maps to show the detour. KROS Radio in Clinton says it’s for a deck overlay project.

This is a major bummer for the Lincoln Highway Middle Third Tour, which is going from Joliet to Cheyenne along the 1928 route* later this month. The present US 30 bridge did not open until 30 years after the Lincoln was gone, and the present 136 bridge is the closest equivalent.

*Technically, the Blair cutoff didn’t happen until 1930, but it’s complicated, and the Lincoln still had enough cachet that markers were moved, and getting through the area will be bad enough thanks to going through during the College World Series.

The IA 9/WI 82 bridge at Lansing has been closed again. The bridge was closed starting May 17 after one of the existing bridge’s piers moved. This isn’t the first time this has happened during construction of the bridge’s replacement right next to it.

An Iowa DOT press release says the bridge will be closed at least through the Memorial Day weekend. It also says there is no timeline for making any repairs to the existing bridge nor when it might reopen.