Iowa Highway Ends (etc.)

Central and eastern Iowa counties that are not on the present four-lane section of US 30 are very determined to get on it, and won’t take any half-measures.

From “The Center Square”, a news organization focused on “state- and local-level government and economic reporting”:

Eighteen counties, cities and other entities are partnering with the Highway 30 Coalition to oppose the Iowa Department of Transportation project, which would stretch between Lisbon to DeWitt. Instead of the five-year construction of Super 2, the partnership advocated for construction of a four-lane highway.

A Super-2 adds passing and acceleration lanes. It would not require bypassing towns. A DOT spokeswoman said, according to the story, that a four-lane would triple the costs involved (before inflation, I might add). The coalition has commissioned a study for later this year on feasibility of a four-lane corridor.

I covered the release of the 2019 planning study and noted that there are a lot of hazards, water and otherwise, to a four-lane corridor between Lisbon and De Witt. In 2017, I noted that traffic counts notably drop east of Stanwood. The link from then now goes to a 2020 AADT map, and it shows the same. In fact, by these counts, one could make an argument for four-laning all of IA 1 in Johnson County, or at least Iowa City to Mount Vernon, before more of US 30.

The story also reveals that the Missouri Valley bypass has been delayed a year. Farther west, Fremont-to-Schuyler in Nebraska is supposed to be getting a four-lane 30 sometime soon, though I don’t know where that is progress-wise.

In the meantime, my proposal from five years ago to dust off 30-year plans at the west 30/169 junction would seem like a comparatively easy component to get moving.

The last part of the White Pole Road between Anita and Adel under state control is losing its original concrete, but it hasn’t been visible for more than a quarter-century.

A 2-mile segment of IA 25 between Casey and Menlo uses old US 6. This segment, which was US 32 in 1926-31, went from gravel to paved in nearly all of western Iowa in 1930. It just so happens that the middle of this two-mile segment is where contracts were split, and paving in Beaver Township (through Menlo) was finished days before Thanksgiving 1929.

From the Casey Vindicator via the June 12, 1930 Guthrie Center Times:

To give our readers some idea of the magnitude of that day’s [June 10] work we give the following general statement of operations: First the road bed must be put to the proper grade, then the more perfect subgrade must be constructed, the steel forms which serve the double purpose of forms for the slab and a track for the mixing and finishing equipment must be set up. The crushed rock, sand and cement must be unloaded from the railway cars and hauled by truck to the mixer from which it is spread, packed, leveled and smoothed, 100 feet, linear measure of 18 foot paving requires practically one carload of crushed rock, one-half carload of sand and one-fourth carload of cement. In other words the 1430 feet of paving laid on Tuesday required approximately 27 carloads of material to build.

The DOT is going to completely rebuild this section of road this summer. According to a short video/slideshow, the 91-year-old concrete still exists underneath a 3-inch asphalt overlay (with widening) from 1984. This means, by inference, that when US 6 was shifted onto I-80 in 1980, drivers were navigating 50-year-old pavement! In 1970s cars, which are practically boats! On an 18-foot-wide road!

I wonder how many other roads in Iowa still have original concrete under asphalt overlays, waiting for the inevitable complete-rebuild. As for the rest of the White Pole Road, we’d have to ask the Guthrie County engineer, but I strongly suspect that hasn’t changed.

[rant]

Now, about that video/slideshow: Since the start of the year, the project meeting site has included almost zero project documents. Instead, each page demands registration and either visiting a different page or opening an app (FAQ here, and be warned, “stakeholders” are involved).

I do not want to have to create an account to see project files. I do not want to have to deal with something “optimized for mobile.” I want to be able to download a PDF — a 30-year-old-format, universally viewable, local-copy PDF. Why is this being made so difficult?

[/rant]

Yeah, yeah, Oldthinker Unbellyfeels Mobile Optimisation. I’m sure there’s a cloud I can yell at.

Iowa Highway Commission blueprints from 1926 show plans for a bridge at North 4th Avenue East across Elk Creek.

A tiny, nearly-century-old bridge on the east side of Newton has no firm replacement plans despite being closed for years.

The Newton Daily News reports that the North 4th Avenue East bridge is stuck in two different limbos: Jurisdiction is split between the city and county, and replacement is subject to both Iowa DOT and Iowa DNR approval. To meet environmental standards, the replacement needs to be twice as long, which will significantly increase costs.

The bridge was built in 1926 in conjunction with paving of US 32 across much of Jasper County. It remained part of the cross-state route until a new alignment of US 6 was built in the 1950s, and was open through at least fall 2011. There is a string of houses east of the bridge that have to take a detour to head west.

August 5, 2017: This intersection of southbound US 218 at the US 18/IA 27 four-lane in Floyd is being turned into an interchange.

The Avenue of the Saints is getting another stoplight, but it’s only going to be around for a couple years.

Construction season is starting — though, as this KIMT story says, it hasn’t been feeling like it weather-wise. There is an immediate start to work on a new US 18/218 interchange at Floyd, where 218 leaves the Avenue of the Saints. Eastbound traffic will be moved to head-to-head in the westbound lanes for construction of a bridge. The other bridge will be built next year, according to the story, although it might be contracted in the next two months because the 2022-26 five-year plan crams everything into FY22 spending. For now, a stoplight will be set up at the 18/218 intersection.

IA 19 was paved between Nora Springs and Charles City in 1922, but it was not until a decade later that the diagonal bypassing downtown Floyd was built. Slightly similarly, perhaps, this interchange has been under discussion for a DECADE.

When the interchange is finished, multiple nearby intersections will be closed off, including at Liberty Street and Packard Avenue, which US 18 used to go in/out of Floyd before 1932. In addition, since the US 30 interchange is now complete, US 218’s only at-grade intersection with a US route for its entire length will be its south end at US 136 in Keokuk.

The original turn of US 20 in Jesup became so accident-prone after the highway was paved in 1922 (as IA 5) that the Highway Commission had a special project to create a curve in the road in 1929. That curve, seen above, exists to this day, although it’s no longer part of a highway.

Earlier this year, news came that the curve was in danger of being vacated by the city and sold to the owner of the adjoining land that includes Jesup’s former grocery store, which closed in 2019.* This caught the eye the Historic Route 20 Association, which raised awareness online about the historic character of the road. (I contributed some information, but I also figured it was a done deal. Shows what I know.)

Monday night, the Jesup City Council decided not to proceed with vacating the road, KCRG reports. That means the concrete curve will stay intact — for now, anyway.

*Jesup’s newspaper followed the grocery store at the end of 2021. Here’s the goodbye note from the editor.

Dubuque Street in Johnson County might seem like an exception to the rule of city-named streets in rural areas going to the city in question. The first route between Iowa City and Dubuque, Dillon’s Furrow, is along the IA 1 corridor. However, if you think of it as Johnson County’s main road to Dubuque via Cedar Rapids, the name makes sense.

From the 1927 completion of paving for US 161 from Iowa City to the Linn County line until the 1957 reroute of US 218 south to Coralville, Dubuque Street through North Liberty was a straight arrow. (Before 1927, it’s possible or even probable the highway followed Main and Zeller streets.) Since then, though, the diagonal has lost some of its integrity.

The first change was immediate: A slight curve was built for the new US 218 (later IA 965) at Scales Bend Road to follow the new mainline. The second came in the 1990s, when the diagonal in town was cut off at Penn Street so the road to the north was continuous with Stewart Street.

The third change is happening right now. Last month, North Liberty started a construction project that will result in Dubuque Street north of Cherry Street flow into Front Street. The section west of Front will intersect it in a T. Long-term plans include a city hall in the space between the police station and Front.

It could be worse. The city could be putting in a monstrosity of a roundabout like the one now at Front and Penn.

Unrelated to the construction, but related to North Liberty and worth a note: The North Liberty Leader newspaper was shut down earlier this year.