Iowa Highway Ends (etc.)

The biggest revelation of the DOT’s public meeting about six-laning the middle section of I-380 between Iowa City and Cedar Rapids is that project PDFs will not be made available online on a regular basis due to the Americans With Disabilities Act, because visually impaired people cannot read PDFs.

However, PDFs for a different meeting, on six-laning I-35 in Story County, were made available, so it could be hit-or-miss. (If I have to annoy state employees to get the files, none of us is going to like it.)

The Iowa DOT has a press release about the various warning zones around the Black Hawk Bridge in preparation for its demolition Friday morning. There will be a livestream. The car ferry will not operate over the weekend as debris is removed.

(note: As of this week, I am getting errors while trying to make new posts when I use the Safari browser, so if anyone knows what “Failed to initialize plugin: wplink” means and how to fix it, that’d be appreciated.)

The Iowa DOT will have an open house and information meeting at the Ames Public Library tonight regarding the six-laning of I-35 from the end of the present project near IA 210 to the US 30 interchange.

PDFs are available at the meeting link. The new alignment of the interstate isn’t entirely straight. Notably, the little weave just south of US 30 where the southbound lanes move away from the northbound lanes is retained.

As for the US 30 interchange itself, the three remaining loops of the cloverleaf are retained, but rebuilt. Also, another lane of eastbound US 30 will be built from the Dayton Avenue on-ramp to the exit to southbound I-35.

Construction will not start until 2029 (second half of 2028) at the earliest.