Oct 24

Many forfeits for lack of players this football season

Posted on Monday, October 24, 2016, at 10:00 AM by Jeff

There have been enough cases of small high schools forfeiting football games this year due to lack of players after injuries that it’s worth documenting:

Playoffs start Friday, back on the old schedule, after the reduction of qualifying teams.

Posted in Schools, Sports | Comments Off on Many forfeits for lack of players this football season
Oct 21

Rider Corner (IA 141) meeting set, plans released

Posted on Friday, October 21, 2016, at 10:00 AM by Jeff


May 7, 2006: This exit ramp on I-35/80 will be replaced with a flyover ramp that leaves the mainline just north of Meredith Drive.

The Iowa DOT will hold a meeting Oct. 24 in Johnston to go over the final plans for adding two interchanges and modifying the IA 141 exit in the Des Moines metro area.

The “initial build” (PDF) involves a flyover ramp from NB 35/80 to 141 (replacing a loop ramp that comes to a stoplight), a full interchange at 100th Street, and two ramps to Meredith Drive. From Douglas Avenue to 86th Street, I-35/80 will have four lanes in each direction plus a fifth lane between on-ramps and off-ramps.

The “final build” (PDF) will add even more lanes, along with very long southbound exit/northbound entrance ramps at Meredith Drive. WB-SB 35/80 traffic will exit for Meredith with the exit for 141, then follow a new long ramp that will go over Urbandale Drive/141, the railroad, and a realigned onramp from SB 141 to SB 35/80. Drivers trying to get onto the interstate from Meredith, on the other hand, will have a dedicated bridge over Urbandale Drive, merge with the traffic coming from Urbandale Drive, and then have a chance to get into mainline interstate traffic before a double-lane exit onto 100th Street.

All these additional lanes will be built almost entirely within the existing footprint of the highways. A newly built Plum Drive, an arterial on the south side of the interstate, will help to alleviate some construction-related james.

The project is a far cry from the farmland the area used to be when the interchange was first constructed. A picture of the area from 40 years ago is on my IA 141 page.

Posted in Construction | Comments Off on Rider Corner (IA 141) meeting set, plans released
Oct 19

H is for Hamburg

Posted on Wednesday, October 19, 2016, at 10:10 AM by Jeff

October 2, 2015: Two views of the Hamburg school building. A larger version of the second photo can be seen by opening it in a new tab.

The southwesternmost school building in Iowa is also one of the most recent to be shuttered.

In the same state Department of Education review process that eventually ended with the Farragut school district getting nuked, the Hamburg school district had to close the building complex centered around the 1924 high school. The state found multiple areas of noncompliance with the Americans With Disabilities Act. Faced with spending large sums of money to comply, Hamburg and Farragut (as Nishnabotna) acted to move the middle school (2012-15) to Farragut and all elementary students to a school on the north side of Hamburg. (Farragut also closed the elementary portion of its building.)

With the end of the Farragut school district, Hamburg is back to a K-8 district, but all those students will be at Marnie Simons Elementary and not this building. The 9-12 students are tuitioned out to Sidney, but that is not yet a true one-way grade-sharing agreement. Neither the Q&A put out after the Farragut news nor Hamburg’s February meeting had an answer to the question of what to do with grades 9-12, but being in the corner of the state, there’s not much of a choice.

Posted in Schools, Sequences | Comments Off on H is for Hamburg
Oct 18

A vocalization corrected

Posted on Tuesday, October 18, 2016, at 10:00 AM by Jeff

Well, I’ll be darned, Garmin figured out something was wrong. No more “aooounty road” for me. This has been available for three years, apparently.

countyroad

The Garmin Express application only works in Mac OS 10.7 and up, but I was able to get it through my laptop. The feed to the “Lifetime Map Updater” application was frozen and thinks “2014.30” is still the most recent, but I can’t update because the GPS doesn’t have enough space anyway. I COULD install the memory expansion card, but I’m hesitant to make that integral to the GPS, since its removal would break things. (It’s a heck of a strategy to offer “lifetime updates” when the space required outpaces the space available.)

PS: Posts may be sporadic in the next couple of weeks.

Posted in Trip Reports | Comments Off on A vocalization corrected
Oct 17

Significant US 20 detour to last two years

Posted on Monday, October 17, 2016, at 10:00 AM by Jeff

Today, the easternmost 13 miles of two-lane US 20, in Ida and Sac counties, will close “until late fall 2018,” the Iowa DOT says in a press release. (See also this Cherokee Chronicle Times story.) This is significant not only for its distance and time, but because when the highway opens again, it will be as part of a complete four-lane 20 across Iowa.

The Schaller-Crestland and Galva-Holstein school districts, sharing as Ridge View, will be significantly affected, the Sioux City Journal reports. The Journal also mentions that traffic will not go through Schaller, but on two miles of newly paved road around the northwest part of town.

County Road D15 between Galva and Schaller was US 20 for the first decade of the highway’s life. So, just like how there’s a detour right now using D22 west of Correctionville, the final step in making the new highway involves a callback to the old one.

Posted in Construction | Comments Off on Significant US 20 detour to last two years
Oct 14

What did Iowa do to you, ‘Designated Survivor’?

Posted on Friday, October 14, 2016, at 10:00 AM by Jeff

I’m trying to watch “Designated Survivor” on ABC (starring Jack Bauer! Except he’s not Jack Bauer!), but the show seems to be making an effort to lose me.

After the “third deputy assistant to the press secretary” has a poor performance in front of the DC press corps, Kal Penn’s character takes up the mantle. And what happens to the previous person thrust into the spotlight?

“That poor guy is probably halfway to Dubuque by now.”

Now, is it a random city, a poke at Midwesterners who go to DC thinking they have the chops to handle the place, or both? (Or Penn’s character doing the same thing and the guy wasn’t even from Dubuque?) I admit I’m picking apart one line for something non-serious; this is not why the show is losing me. If there’s a state that should have a beef with the show it’s Michigan, because oh boy.

Posted in Iowa Miscellaneous | Comments Off on What did Iowa do to you, ‘Designated Survivor’?
Oct 13

C57 interchange opens today

Posted on Thursday, October 13, 2016, at 10:00 AM by Jeff

The US 218-C57 (Cedar Wapsi Road) interchange opens today, the Iowa DOT says in a press release. The opening comes a month after the ribbon-cutting ceremony.

Also today, the three at-grade intersections with US 218 between Cedar Falls and Janesville will close permanently; they were right-in-right-out intersections as an interim move. This means that old 218 on the north side of Janesville will be the last intersection on 218 heading south until you get southeast of downtown Waterloo and all traffic will get on/off at C50, C57, or Lone Tree Road between Janesville and Cedar Falls.

Posted in Highway Miscellaneous | Comments Off on C57 interchange opens today
Oct 11

Charter Oak-Ute could lose its high school

Posted on Tuesday, October 11, 2016, at 10:00 AM by Jeff

OLYMPUS DIGITAL CAMERA
August 31, 2008: The Charter Oak school building opened in the fall of 1916. It became part of the Charter Oak-Ute school district in 1961. Its time as a high school may be done after its 101st class.

Iowa’s largest single-high-school area is on the verge of being relocated once again.

In a story from the Mapleton Press and a letter from Steve Oberg, the superintendent of the Maple Valley-Anthon-Oto school district, continued plunging enrollment and squeezed state funding are too much (or, if you think about it, not enough) for Charter Oak-Ute to handle. COU will consider sending its high school students to MVAO, the favorite option after a survey. MVAO will consider the whole-grade sharing at a meeting Wednesday, the superintendent’s letter says.

MVAO has lost a third of its students in the past decade, and even adding back the seven dozen or so COU high schoolers wouldn’t quite get back to the 2006 number. COU is 60% of the size it was in 1980-81, the Press article noted.

A combined MVAO/COU would be in four counties and include the towns of Anthon, Castana, Charter Oak, Danbury, Mapleton, Rodney, Soldier, and Ute (but not Smithland, which is the east end of the Westwood district, or Ricketts, which is part of Schleswig). It would stretch from a few miles away from US 20 to a few miles away from US 30. It would be an area of 558 square miles — a shade larger than Western Dubuque and 10 square miles larger than Algona-plus-LuVerne after the dissolution of Corwith-Wesley.

In order for COU to send students to MVAO next school year, an agreement must be in place by the end of this month.

Posted in Schools | Comments Off on Charter Oak-Ute could lose its high school
Oct 10

Turnover of roads in Dubuque on meeting agenda

Posted on Monday, October 10, 2016, at 10:00 AM by Jeff

OLYMPUS DIGITAL CAMERA
September 28, 2015: The north end of IA 32 in Sageville, on the north side of Dubuque. All the highways at this intersection will be peeled away in the future, just like IA 386 was in 2003.

The Iowa Transportation Commission will meet tomorrow morning in Dubuque and a transfer of jurisdiction is on the table.

The state intends to turn over the part of US 52/IA 3 in the city of Dubuque, plus IA 32, in anticipation of completion of the Southwest Arterial within the decade. When the arterial opens, US 52 will be signed along it, and then on US 20 to Dyersville and IA 136 north to Luxemburg.

The new east end of IA 3 will be in the vicinity of the current intersection with 32, but Sageville’s city limits are very goofy. It makes all the sense in the world to have IA 3’s new east end be at the intersection with the Northwest Arterial, but we’ll have to see what happens.

Posted in Highway Miscellaneous | Comments Off on Turnover of roads in Dubuque on meeting agenda
Oct 07

I-380 evaluation meeting scheduled

Posted on Friday, October 7, 2016, at 10:00 AM by Jeff

Six-laning I-380 between Cedar Rapids and Iowa City is on the Iowa DOT’s wish list. But the north side of the Cedar Rapids metro area has grown too, and the state is trying to work ahead on that.

A public meeting is scheduled for Wednesday to talk about I-380 between the Collins Road (IA 100) and County Home Road (E34) exits. I-380 changes from six to four lanes at the Blairs Ferry Road exit. A potential exit at Tower Terrace Road is part of the evaluation. This is only the super-super-early meeting, so nothing will happen for years, but it’s good it’s being talked about.

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