Sep 08

Speed limit at US 18/218 reduced

Posted on Thursday, September 8, 2016, at 10:00 AM by Jeff

The speed limit on the Avenue of the Saints in Floyd around the US 18/218 split will be reduced from 65 to 55 mph tomorrow, the Iowa DOT says. The speed zone will be a mile and a half long. The move is in response to renewed concerns about the intersection after a motorcyclist died there in July.

Five years and eight days ago, the DOT made the same move at the US 65/IA 330/IA 117 intersection in Jasper County for the same reasons. The change was not enough to stop the state from pressing ahead on building an interchange there, which should be done in the next few years. An interchange in Floyd could be fast-tracked but getting a grade separation by the end of the decade is a tall order.

KCHA Radio has an interview with State Rep. Todd Pritchard about the intersection.

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Sep 07

Urbandale 100th Street interchange approved

Posted on Wednesday, September 7, 2016, at 10:00 AM by Jeff

Last week, the Federal Highway Administration cleared the last procedural step for construction of an interchange at I-35/80 and 100th Street in Urbandale, The Des Moines Register reports. It’s the second interchange in the area to be built after initial construction of I-35/80 in the late 1950s — an exit at 86th Street opened in 1994.

When the exit opens in 2018, it will provide some relief from the IA 141 interchange. That exit is going to get a flyover ramp (with closure of the inner loops) and two ramps will be added at Meredith Drive. However, there will still be stoplights on 141 between 35/80 and the IA 44 exit.

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Sep 06

Seippel Road closure next step in Southwest Arterial

Posted on Tuesday, September 6, 2016, at 10:00 AM by Jeff

This morning, the intersection of Seippel Road and US 20 on the southwest corner of Dubuque closed permanently for construction of an interchange. Here’s the DOT announcement and a map from Dubuque that shows the area and the detour.

The street will be realigned to cross over 20 and become the western point of the Southwest Arterial, a project decades in the making. This is where future US 52 will split off from 20 and go southeast around Dubuque to US 61/151. The interchange won’t be open until 2020.

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Sep 05

A thought about indigestion from an alleged cupcake

Posted on Monday, September 5, 2016, at 10:12 AM by Jeff

IF
September 3, 2016: With about 20 seconds remaining, after Joel Lanning had committed Iowa State’s third consecutive turnover, the video boards at Jack Trice Stadium cut to the coaches walking onto the field. About ten seconds after the clock reached zero, the ribbon boards dropped stats, too. Do not think this action wasn’t noticed.

AND THAT’S WHY YOU DON’T ICE THE KICKER FROM THE 2-YARD LINE.

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Sep 03

GLADBROOK-REINBECK DISSOLUTION REJECTED

Posted on Saturday, September 3, 2016, at 10:16 AM by Jeff

The Gladbrook-Reinbeck school board has unanimously rejected a proposal for dissolving the school district because it questions the validity of the signatures on the petition that started the process. The Northern Sun-Print has a story (in Great Wall of Text form, originally from the Marshalltown Times-Republican); KCRR radio has a story, too.

A more detailed account of the Aug. 23 school board meeting is in the minutes online. Also of interest in the meeting: The 7-12 language teacher, who had been there for one year, quit and moved out of the state two weeks before school started (that’s an ethics violation), and one of the school board members voting to reject the dissolution petition resigned because he is also moving out of the state.

The board’s action means that the 48-page report submitted by the dissolution committee at the meeting (Google Drive PDF) and the hours of meetings are all for nothing.

Any further action would require restarting the entire process — petition, committee creation, meetings, letters to schools, all of it would have to happen in the same way all over again. With GMG taking the position that it would not reopen the school in Gladbrook, I wonder how much appetite there is to do that. We could find out based on if there’s a petition for an election to fill that vacant board seat.

What hasn’t gone away are the feelings on the parts of those who remain upset about the closure of the school in Gladbrook and those upset about being dragged through the months of the dissolution process.

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Sep 02

Sing along to Onslow fight songs

Posted on Friday, September 2, 2016, at 10:03 AM by Jeff

This page about Onslow school history has the words to the official — and unofficial — songs for a district that was subsumed into the newly created Midland district in 1960. The school building is no longer open.

If you know anything about school fight songs, it will be rapidly obvious what the tunes are. (Highlight for the answers: Illinois and Notre Dame.)

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Sep 01

Historic Crawford County bridge irreparably damaged

Posted on Thursday, September 1, 2016, at 10:02 AM by Jeff

OLYMPUS DIGITAL CAMERA
August 8, 2016: Damage is evident on supports for the 180th Street Bridge over Beaver Creek west of Kiron.

A bowstring bridge in northern Crawford County has been closed to traffic since April and cannot be repaired, the Council Bluffs Nonpareil reports. It will have to be partially or entirely replaced.

The bridge is one of fewer than two dozen of its kind left in Iowa at the turn of the 21st century and one of six built in Crawford County in 1945. For more information see Bowstring Arch Bridges of Iowa (PDF), especially pages 18 and 22.

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Aug 31

St. Ansgar school will be torn down

Posted on Wednesday, August 31, 2016, at 10:00 AM by Jeff


August 4, 2015: Detailed view of the brickwork at the southeast corner of the St. Ansgar Elementary building. (Photo also used in May 4 blog post.)

The St. Ansgar school district voted to sell its former elementary building to a local development group that plans to have it torn down, the Mitchell County Press-News reports (via the Mason City Globe Gazette). The building was the high school in town for much of the 20th century.

There was a proposal to save the building, but the city would have needed to take interim possession and that would have cost $100,000 for insurance alone, the article says. A community group then would have had to raise $3-5 million.

UPDATE: THIS DID NOT HAPPEN. The board changed its mind.

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Aug 30

J is for Jamaica

Posted on Tuesday, August 30, 2016, at 10:00 AM by Jeff


May 15, 2011: Former Panorama Elementary building in Jamaica.

The Panorama school district needed five different votes in the 1990s to reach a 60% supermajority on a bond issue to build a new elementary school, and it was finally dragged across the finish line in September 1996 (Guthrie Center Times). A significant reason for the repeated rejection likely was the fact that a new elementary would result in closing schools in both Jamaica and Linden.

Jamaica was the last building in use from the Yale-Jamaica-Bagley school district — the other two closed in 1989, when YJB and Panora-Linden merged — and the opening of a new elementary in Panora in 1999 was indeed the death knell.

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Aug 29

Tama County Lincoln Highway meeting tomorrow

Posted on Monday, August 29, 2016, at 10:00 AM by Jeff


Nov. 22, 2002: Lincoln Highway bridge in Tama. If you haven’t seen my fall 2002 photo project, it’s new to you!

Following a meeting in central Iowa about the Lincoln Highway Heritage Byway corridor, there will be a similar meeting in Tama County this week. It will be in the Tama County Courthouse in Toledo on Tuesday from 1:30 to 3 PM, according to this press release.

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