Iowa Highway Ends (etc.)

June 18, 2015: This exit sign along US 61/151 in Dubuque is among those that will be replaced later this year.

The opening of the Southwest Arterial, and subsequent removal of US 52 through Dubuque, resulted in a “green-out” on various signs on the US 61/151 expressway/freeway through the city. Soon those traces will be gone. A July 19 sign letting that is officially “statewide” but mostly concentrated in Dubuque County replaces signs dating back to the early 1990s, when the road opened (see my Dubuque Highway Chronology for more).

Exit numbers are coming to US 61/151 in the area, too! The letter of the law of “lowest highway number gets the exits*” would have resulted in some discontinuity, because US 52 was clearly a piggybacking route. (MM 47 in the photo above is 52’s.) But now that US 52 and IA 3 are no longer in this area, the state is taking the opportunity to add US 61’s exit numbering through the city. Grandview Avenue will be Exit 187, IA 946 (the connector to US 20) will be Exit 188, White Street will be Exit 189A, 9th/11th Streets (plus the “Historic Millwork District”) will be Exit 189B, and Kerper Boulevard will be Exit 190.

Signs in the letting have Dubuque Greyhound Park on them, but greyhound races ended permanently in May.

Other parts of the letting include:

• At I-35 Exit 69 (Grand Avenue), a supplemental sign for Des Moines University and something called the “MidAmerican Energy Company RecPlex” which according to its five-tweet Twitter account is “a one-of-a-kind sports facility in Central Iowa.” A KCCI story about it said donors “hope the new sports complex will bring more families to West Des Moines” because if anywhere in Iowa has trouble attracting families, it’s Des Moines’ western suburbs.
• At I-80 Exit 8 (US 6), a straight-up replacement BGS for US 6 that ideally would have “East” added beside the shield, since 6 does not go through Council Bluffs on surface streets anymore. This sign is in the “accelerated time frame” so it could be a replacement for one that was damaged.
• Signs in the generic interchange style for the new Swiss Valley Road interchange southwest of Dubuque on US 20.
• Removal of lighting and catwalks from the sign trusses that will remain in place in Dubuque but get new BGSs. This has popped up in other projects too, and I wonder if increased reflectivity of the signs has eliminated the need for independent lighting.

*A very notable flaunting of those rules: I-35/80 around Des Moines using I-80’s numbers.

This is an excerpt from a contract being let July 19, showing the I-35 flyover in red and grading work in tan.

Grading in the southwest and northeast corners of the northeast mixmaster in Des Moines, and the new I-35 flyover bridge, are among the construction projects in the July 2022 Iowa DOT letting.

This is “Stage 3A” of the plan, which advances the new eastbound I-80 to northbound I-35 flyover bridge, westbound I-80 to northbound I-35 exit ramp, and eastbound I-80 to southbound I-235 exit ramp. The flyover itself is 2650 feet long — half a mile plus 10 feet.

There was a public meeting about this stage of the project nearly five years ago (PDF here) (Des Moines Register story here). The real start, though, might be considered to be the NE 54th Avenue bridge replacement just to the north of the mixmaster in 2016. At that time, transportation engineer specialist David Evans told trade publication Construction Equipment Guide that the bridge “is probably the longest span bridge not over water in Iowa.” It appears to me that the flyover bridge or one of the other two in the final build-out of the plan could replace it.

I believe there are five left exits remaining in the state of Iowa. This mixmaster project and the I-29/I-480 project that started last year will eliminate two of them.