Iowa Highway Ends (etc.)

On extremely short notice, for a project that went past the original expected completion date, there’s going to be a party for new IA 17 east of Boone. A “celebration” of the opening of the overpass is today at 3 PM at Cobblestone Hotel and Suites in Boone, according to a DOT news release.

It has been seven years, three months, and three weeks since a meeting in Boone kicked off the process to figure out what to do with IA 17 in the area of the Lincoln Highway and Union Pacific Railroad. The design chosen in 2019, from three proposals in 2016, has 17 head north with an overpass over both E41 and the railroad, then turn east at 200th Street, with 200th improved west to Boone.

As noted in previous posts, the opening of new 17 eliminates the option to take the signed 1913 Lincoln Highway route on 205th Street, because the crossing at R Avenue will be closed, as will the crossings at Quartz Avenue and S Avenue (under the overpass). The route along E41 and now-former 17 will have to be used to get to Jordan. Research since my 2019 blog post points to 205th being part of the Ames-Boone route until paving opened in the summer of 1930. The blueprint for an overpass of the Fort Dodge, Des Moines and Southern interurban in January 1930, just east of R Avenue, says “Proposed Highway.”

I was hoping to travel the new 17 in October and didn’t think about taking a farewell detour on 205th. Whoops.

UPDATE: Ames Tribune says it’s not open yet, will be “a few weeks.”

A public information meeting scheduled for Wednesday to discuss “right of way impacts” on expansion of I-380 south of Cedar Rapids will also provide updated details of the expansion in general.

The meeting already has PDFs posted online. The diagrams show a six-lane I-380 between the County Road F12 exit and the rest area, and an eight-lane I-380 between the rest area and the airport exit. The airport exit, which will become a diverging diamond, has more lanes on the ramps than a plan released in 2019. I-380 southbound will be four lanes from US 30 to the airport exit, but three lanes northbound. My suspicion on the difference is because the entire I-380/US 30 interchange has to be rebuilt before I-380 can be six lanes through the interchange, and that’s not part of this package.

Expansion of 380 from the Forevergreen Road exit to north of the Penn Street exit through North Liberty, and from the F12 exit to US 30, is mostly programmed for 2025. The 5-or-so-mile space between, including the bridges over former IA 965 and the Iowa River, is not in the five-year plan yet.

The Hickman Road (US 6) exit on I-35/80 will be turned into a diverging diamond interchange by the end of the decade, according to Iowa DOT plans. KCCI has a story. The DOT website blessedly has PDFs available following the Nov. 22 public meeting.

This project will also affect the exits to the north and south. The two loops at the Douglas Avenue exit will be elongated. Southbound I-35/80 to University Avenue will have a two-lane exit. There will be five lanes of through traffic northbound and four lanes southbound, with auxiliary lanes (entrance doesn’t merge but becomes exit-only) between the Hickman exit and those to the north and south.

West on Hickman, development in Waukee has overwhelmed the four-laning done in 2000. There is some work just west of I-35/80, KCCI reports, but otherwise nothing is programmed.