Iowa Highway Ends (etc.)

A county road project this year ties into Iowa highway history in Jasper County.

The Newton News reports that the “third phase” of a project on County Road F48 west of Colfax includes widening the curve at 124th Street. The curve will get a larger turning radius. This road was part of US 6 until 1980. The curve here was already widened once, during a repavement in the 1950s that replaced the original concrete from the 1920s.

Much of the county’s work on F48 in recent years has been to update the road as it was received from the state when US 6 was turned over between Newton and Altoona.

September 27, 2015: The top plaque on a pillar at the Illinois approach to the Centennial Bridge notes that the bridge, initially planned to be named in honor of Rock Island Mayor Robert Galbraith, was renamed for the centennial of the founding of the city of Rock Island. The bottom plaque is for rehabilitation of the bridge in 1995-96. More pictures on the US 67 page.

The Illinois Department of Transportation is the lead agency in replacing the Centennial Bridge (US 67) across the Mississippi River in the Quad Cities. The second meeting in selecting a path forward will be 3-6 PM Jan. 28 at “The Current Iowa, 2nd Floor, 215 N Main St, Davenport, IA” (as formatted on the dedicated website for the bride project).

According to the current timeline, there will be three more meetings before a preferred alternative is selected in spring 2027. Then it will be a race against time to get a replacement bridge completed before the centennial of the Centennial Bridge in 2040 — and I’m not sure I’m joking.

The bridge was tolled until 2003 and subsequently transferred to state ownership.

June 25, 2006: This picture looking north on US 59, which includes a wrong-way triplex with US 30 and IA 141, approaches the north intersection with US 30. More pictures can be seen on the IA 39 page.

The Iowa Department of Transportation has put two intersections in Denison on its bucket list.

A public meeting tonight in Denison will put on display the plans for turning both of US 59’s intersections with US 30 into roundabouts. These three-way intersections, which haven’t changed since they were built in the early 1960s, have complicated geometries. Admittedly, that makes them ideal candidates for roundabouts.

According to plans on the page, the core of the “South Bucket” will be just a hair north of the present intersection, and the core of the “Middle Bucket” will be just a hair south of the present intersection. This terminology implies the “North Bucket” is the US 59/IA 39 intersection, which is untouched in this project.

Overall construction also includes replacing the bridges across the Union Pacific Railroad. It will be a three-year project, starting in late 2028 and ending in late 2031.