Dec 15

$1B estimate to six-lane major rural interstates

Posted on Monday, December 15, 2014, at 10:43 AM by Jeff

Currently, the Iowa DOT is pouring tens of millions of dollars into upgrading urban interstate systems in Council Bluffs and Sioux City. I-80 in Iowa City has been upgraded to six lanes, and the complete rebuild of I-235 in Des Moines is a decade in the past now.

But as this article in the Des Moines Register points out, rural interstates are carrying enough traffic that they need to be six-laned, too. (And that’s without mentioning, again, that four-laning US 20 still isn’t finished.)

The biggest choke points, in my personal experience, are I-380 between Cedar Rapids and Iowa City and I-35 between Ankeny and Ames. Those aren’t the only locations the state is looking at, though: The entire eastern half of I-80 could be a candidate for six-laning in the future.

The closest comparative project would be I-80 in eastern Nebraska, recently opened to six lanes from Omaha to Lincoln. Ohio finished six-laning I-71 from Columbus to Cleveland just before this Thanksgiving.

The Iowa projects would be ambitious, and currently only done piecemeal, as with a proposed bridge replacement on I-35 south of Ames. The long-range plan, such as it is, will likely be a factor in the gas tax debate next legislative session.

Posted in Construction | Comments Off on $1B estimate to six-lane major rural interstates
Dec 12

No automatic waivers to start school in August

Posted on Friday, December 12, 2014, at 5:58 PM by Jeff

“Effective immediately, the department will no longer automatically grant waivers of the school start date requested under Iowa (law) for the 2015-2016 school year.”

Big move. Stories: Gazette, Register (AP), KCCI. It was one thing to get waivers starting school the week before Labor Day. It became another thing entirely when everyone was moving school 2½ weeks before. Sept. 1, 2015, is a Tuesday, meaning that school cannot start until Aug. 31.

One question to be answered later: How will this affect the expanded football playoffs?

If this comes up in the Legislature, changing the law to “last full week of August” would be a fine compromise.

Posted in Schools | Comments Off on No automatic waivers to start school in August
Dec 12

Courier features North Tama’s “Plus 1” Mondays

Posted on Friday, December 12, 2014, at 10:40 AM by Jeff

This year, the North Tama school district is not following a standard school calendar. Every other Monday is a “Plus 1” “enrichment session.” Regular classes aren’t held, and students spend more time than a regular class period on various activities.

The Waterloo-Cedar Falls Courier has an article (that originally ran earlier this week) about the program.

Posted in Schools, Tama County | Comments Off on Courier features North Tama’s “Plus 1” Mondays
Dec 11

Fool me three times, shame on…?

Posted on Thursday, December 11, 2014, at 10:30 AM by Jeff


December 6, 2012: Cheerleaders and pom squads from both sides perform before the Iowa-ISU women’s basketball game.

In 2010, with some decent hopes for the 16th-ranked ISU women’s basketball team, I went to Carver-Hawkeye Arena for the first time to see the in-state matchup with the 19th-ranked Hawkeyes.

The Cyclone women put up their lowest point total of the season in a 62-40 blowout, languished in the 20s in the polls for most of the rest of the season, and flamed out in the first round of the NCAA Tournament against Marist.

In 2012, after a successful defense of Hilton Coliseum the previous year, I went over to Iowa City again. But Chelsea Poppens was out from a concussion, and the women again put up their lowest point total of the season in a 50-42 loss that could charitably be described as “sloppy”.

I wasn’t going to go this year, but now that I’m embedded in Hawkeye country (and you weren’t before? -Ed.), it’ll be easier to attend, and I can do that much. If it’s another eventual season-low score, though, I may have to stay away in the future, for the good of the team.

The home team has won this matchup 12 of the past 13 years. This year, the Hawks are ranked 24th and ISU isn’t even receiving votes.

Did you notice the ISU women are not playing UNI this season? Bill Fennelly has been on record as favoring in-state matchups, so it’s a very curious omission.

Posted in Sports | Comments Off on Fool me three times, shame on…?
Dec 10

Three changes needed for the 2015 Iowa highway map

Posted on Wednesday, December 10, 2014, at 10:05 AM by Jeff

Next spring, Iowa will publish its first two-year map under a cost-cutting measure. There won’t be another one until 2017.

Along with the new US 34 bridge, there are at least three other areas that need modification.

  

  1. Tama County blacktopped T69 north of D65 to the Grundy County line. (I don’t have any external links or a picture, though.)
  2. Allamakee County paved A26 from IA 76 to the Winneshiek County line. (Supervisors minutes)
  3. The sharp curves in IA 150 south of Hazleton are are now a gradual slant.
Posted in Maps | Comments Off on Three changes needed for the 2015 Iowa highway map
Dec 09

Benton County US 30 meeting Wednesday

Posted on Tuesday, December 9, 2014, at 10:00 AM by Jeff

We might find out tomorrow night what the DOT plans to do at the intersection of US 30 and 218 in Benton County as part of its plans to upgrade 30 to four lanes heading westward. At the last meeting, the options were either an interchange or a J-turn (a modified Michigan Left that’s just as aggravating). I don’t know if this will be the last meeting over the issue.

One Benton County resident is unhappy with the process, accusing the supervisors of “giving incomplete information”, according to the Cedar Valley Daily Times. He staunchly doesn’t want an interchange, but I don’t believe his accusations hold up given that every public document has put the J-turn up front and center as an option. There’s even a video about J-turns with the meeting notice from August 2013, 16 months ago.

Posted in Construction, Highway Miscellaneous | Comments Off on Benton County US 30 meeting Wednesday
Dec 08

License Plate Letters — CZR

Posted on Monday, December 8, 2014, at 10:52 AM by Jeff

The sighting of a CZ-series plate in early December is a good bookend for 2014, and also signifies that it took 32 months for the first three letters of the alphabet to be run through. Remember, the letter-number combinations replaced all the 1997-2004 plates still on the roads, but now that there is a 10-year usage period the cycle won’t get any faster. The question to be answered, probably before spring, is: Will D be skipped as a first letter as it was the first time around?

A side note: Here and there, I have spotted first-run license plates that slipped through the cracks in county renewals. Ideally, any such bugs will get ironed out in the upcoming year.

Posted in License Plates | Comments Off on License Plate Letters — CZR
Dec 07

Iowa State ties Rutgers in all-time losses

Posted on Sunday, December 7, 2014, at 12:49 PM by Jeff

Because getting so humiliated in front of a national, undivided, broadcast TV audience that the opponent kneeled inside the 10-yard line with 5 minutes to go wasn’t enough. Oh no. Now comes the statistical part.

Paul Rhoads has become mired in some of Iowa State football’s worst coaching records with the 2014 season. In the past two years, ISU went 5-19, with one win over Iowa, and one conference “oh-fer”. Gene Chizik also went 5-19, with one win over Iowa, and one conference “oh-fer”.

Oh-fer crying out loud.

Rhoads becomes the fifth ISU coach in a row to go winless in  conference play for one season, following Chizik, 0-8, 2008; Dan McCarney, 0-8, 2003; Jim Walden, 0-7-1, 1994; and Jim Criner, 0-5-2, 1985. The three coaches before them each had at least one 1-win conference season.

(Here, one may note, is where the individual games begin to fall into the binary structure. Last year’s referee-induced heartbreaker to Texas and the 71-7 pounding from Baylor two weeks later mean the same: L.)

Iowa State reached another ignominious milestone in its 55-3 second-quarter-sad-field-goal loss to TCU: The Cyclones now have as many losses in their history as the Rutgers Scarlet Knights, the team that lost the second game in the history of college football 145 years ago. Both teams now count 621 losses (one more than by NCAA files, based on forfeits). Both teams are one game behind Kansas State, which retains its spot as the fourth-worst-ever team among power-conference members, both by total losses and all-time percentage.

Piling it on a little more, Florida State, which has only had a football team since 1947, passed ISU in NCAA-adjusted all-time wins (512) by doing just enough against Georgia Tech in the ACC championship.

Three-quarters of all power-conference teams are bowl-eligible. Iowa State is not one of them.

Now we have the worst-case scenario of the Big 12 being shut out of the College Football Playoff because of the circular firing squad*, and that will kick off another round of hand-wringing and Conferencepocalypse speculation. All the Playoff did was move the debate from “Who’s #2” to “Who’s #4”, and they call it “progress.”

*Only now the Big 12 gets screwed because there isn’t a championship game, not because there is one. Gary Patterson should’ve told TCU to tack on that extra TD…or not blow a 21-point fourth-quarter lead to Baylor. That quarter may become one of the most important in Big 12 conference history.

Posted in Sports | Comments Off on Iowa State ties Rutgers in all-time losses
Dec 06

Major design changes coming to Iowa highway signage

Posted on Saturday, December 6, 2014, at 10:17 AM by Jeff


Nov. 27, 2006: The then-new Ansborough Avenue interchange in Waterloo shows two signage trends that have become and are becoming standard in Iowa in the 2010s: Larger initial letters and skinny, squat arrows.

The first appearance of non-Iowa-style traffic arrows was eight years ago at the new Ansborough Avenue exit on US 20 in Waterloo. I thought they were contractor-issued, and they likely were, and no other instances appeared. Then, when new US 20 opened in Sac County, all the shields along the IA 196 extension were wide, three-digit versions. Finally, last year, when the US 63-IA 58 intersection was completely bulldozed and reconfigured into a T, the squat arrows appeared again.


June 3, 2014: New signs at the south end of IA 58 in Hudson. Note FHWA Series D font in use for US 63 (ditto US 20 above), which is pretty rare in Iowa but the rule in Minnesota and Missouri. Also note the lack of a thin white border on the shields.

They aren’t a mistake. Small arrows and wide shields for three-digits roads are going to be standard operating procedure for Iowa going forward. In other words…welcome to Kansas.


October 8, 2008: This intersection near Thayer in southeast Kansas shows the sign shapes that are coming to Iowa. Only one three-digit US highway in Iowa (275) does not contain a 1, and the skinny FHWA Series B works just fine, but the wide shields are coming just the same. The numerals above are Series C (47) and D (169). The number 47 hasn’t been used in Iowa since 1980.

If you look closely at the photos, you can see another wrinkle: The arrow signs are slightly less wide (by 3 inches) than the square shields above them. That’s just enough to notice at highway speed.

These changes are being made to conform to the 2009 MUTCD. Iowa’s arrows, which used squares for perpendicular directions or angles and the same long arrow for “ahead” as left and right, will be phased out. The “old” style will be around for years to come, but get progressively rarer. They’ll live on in my photos, at least.

Posted in Highway Miscellaneous, Iowa Miscellaneous | Comments Off on Major design changes coming to Iowa highway signage
Dec 04

Eagle Grove loses its stoplight

Posted on Thursday, December 4, 2014, at 10:16 AM by Jeff

The Eagle Grove Eagle reported at the beginning of November that the stoplight at Broadway and Commercial (IA 17 and C54) no longer functions. The equipment is a quarter-century old and would need to be replaced. The intersection will be a four-way stop until the city tries to get a grant, which wouldn’t be until late next year.

The change leaves one stoplight on the entirety of IA 17 (the south IA 210 junction in Madrid) and three total in Wright County, two in Clarion and one in Belmond. The latter is one of only two stoplights for US 69 (Forest City) between the north side of Ames and the highway’s north end in Albert Lea.

Posted in Iowa Miscellaneous | Comments Off on Eagle Grove loses its stoplight