Mar 17

When the calendar stopped

Posted on Wednesday, March 17, 2021, at 10:00 AM by Jeff

On Sunday, March 8, 2020, in the final game of the regular season, the Iowa State women spoiled Baylor’s perfect conference record in front of 10,000 people at Hilton Coliseum. It would be the last collegiate sporting event in Iowa for months.

On Tuesday, March 10, 2020, Cedar Rapids’ SaPaDaPaSo parade scheduled for the following week was cancelled. The following day, the St. Patrick’s Day march between Davenport and Rock Island was called off.

On Thursday, March 12, 2020, the Iowa State men’s basketball season came to a dismal but scheduled end as the first of two games that night for the Big 12 Conference Tournament. The Big Ten already wasn’t playing. Hours earlier, the IHSAA announced limited attendance for Friday’s games of the boys’ state basketball tournament.

On Friday, March 13, 2020, at approximately 10:10 PM, Ankeny beat Waukee 78-70 for the Class 4A boys’ state basketball championship. It would be the last high school sporting event in Iowa for 95 days, until Colfax-Mingo and Tri-County opened baseball season in Des Moines.

On Sunday, March 15, 2020, I was called and told that if I wanted to use my work computer instead of a laptop, I needed to go get it. Now.

On Tuesday, March 17, 2020, Gov. Kim Reynolds ordered closures of restaurants and other businesses across the state.

Posted in Iowa Miscellaneous | Comments Off on When the calendar stopped
Mar 15

Part of IA 17 closing for 15 months

Posted on Monday, March 15, 2021, at 10:00 AM by Jeff

A project to move IA 17 off E41 east of Boone, which originally came to public light five years ago, starts turning dirt today. The highway closes today with a detour right by the area. According to the press release, it will remain closed until July 2022.

Construction will include an overpass of the railroad/E41, an extension of S Avenue, and paving a mile of 200th Street. Concurrent closure of the railroad crossing at R Avenue will break the Lincoln Highway Heritage Byway route.

There is an important reason to get the project done by mid-summer: The Farm Progress Show is scheduled to be at the Boone site two months later. If there is one, that is.

Posted in Construction | Comments Off on Part of IA 17 closing for 15 months
Mar 12

Catchup on stateline pages

Posted on Friday, March 12, 2021, at 10:00 AM by Jeff


July 24, 2019: I-80 meets I-29 right as it comes into Iowa. Technically, this gantry is on the Nebraska side of the Missouri River. Ahead is the current highway welcome sign.

Some members of the Iowa Legislature see a need for new state welcome signs. I am sure a substantial majority of the current signs, though maybe not quite all of them, are in my pictures, even if only in the background. I decided to look up what I had, only to discover I forgot to upload a few pages for border-to-border highways for months. I wasn’t going to take the time to cross-check them all (some file modifications may have just been code cleanup), so here’s a list of what I know I added photos to in the past couple years.

  • I-80: Eastbound pictures approaching I-29 from 2019. This was the page that tipped me off to the lack of upload. All of my 2006 pictures show the original configuration, now replaced with double-five-lane Missouri River bridges and big flyover ramps.
  • US 52: New Mississippi River bridge
  • US 61: Video frame of old Des Moines River bridge; construction document proving original crossing was on railroad bridge
  • I-280: I-80 approaching east end in Illinois
  • US 6: Speculation about 1920 system highways at the Ak-Sar-Ben and Arsenal bridges
  • US 55: Updated research about its south end in Davenport
  • US 77: One picture of westbound Gordon Drive as it intersects Wesley Parkway

“Fields of Opportunities” isn’t officially the state slogan anymore, but “This Is Iowa” isn’t really workable as a greeting. My suggestion: “Open fields, open roads, open hearts”. I think it sounds inviting.

Posted in Highway Miscellaneous, Iowa Miscellaneous | Comments Off on Catchup on stateline pages
Mar 10

Mocking Iowa’s 2020s congressional districts

Posted on Wednesday, March 10, 2021, at 10:00 AM by Jeff

Normally, at this time of a year ending in 1, the Legislative Services Agency would be hard at work carrying out the nation’s best mapping exercise. This will be the fifth time the LSA has drawn up boundaries for Iowa’s congressional and legislative districts.

It’s not a normal year. It’s so abnormal, in fact, that it’s running headlong into constitutional stipulations that demand creation of districts on a timetable that cannot be met.

To fill the gap, I played a “redistricting game” similar to the one I did for the Register in 2011, using 2019 census estimates issued last year. Ironically, because of the delay in tabulation, we’ll get July 2020 estimates (May 4) before the April 2020 actuals (TBA).

Unlike 2011, though, I did this entirely manually. Things to keep in mind:

  • The LSA will have more up-to-date numbers and more powerful tools. I’m just a map geek with a spreadsheet.
  • Iowa’s redistricting rules factor in district perimeter length. I cannot be that fancy, but I can say “Does this look like a map the LSA would plausibly create?”
  • It is surprisingly difficult to get raw data of general election totals. The files at the secretary of state’s website are PDFs. They can be converted, but there are also multiple subcategories I don’t want. Viewing results is easy, downloading datasets is hard.
  • Staring at this list emphasizes how absurdly county names are tilted toward the first half of the alphabet.
  • I have to use a spreadsheet program that acts differently from Numbers ’09 and can be downright aggravating at times.
  • Iowa does not have any counties with a population between 52,000 (Warren) and 92,000 (Pottawattamie).
  • Polk and Dallas counties, kept together, were nearly 2/3 of a district in 2010 but nearly 3/4 in 2019. Adding 93,000 people will do that — and that number will get them three more state House seats alone.
  • If Iowa still had six congressional districts, logistically it would be nearly impossible to maintain whole-county units. Polk County alone would be 93% of a district. The law would have to be rewritten.
  • Palo Alto County had precisely 5,000 votes cast in the 2020 general election.
  • This academic exercise in no way prevents me from mocking (heh) people who churn out mock drafts for weeks on end.

Armed with two things that can provide hours of entertainment — maps and finite data sets — I set out to create potential Iowa congressional districts for the 2020s. Then I inadvertently created Ashley Hinson’s worst nightmare.

Continue reading →

Posted in Maps | Comments Off on Mocking Iowa’s 2020s congressional districts
Mar 08

Linn Grove bridge to be replaced

Posted on Monday, March 8, 2021, at 10:00 AM by Jeff

The bridge across the Little Sioux River just north of Linn Grove will be replaced in 2022, the Storm Lake Times reports. The state will chip in about half the $2 million replacement cost.

The bridge dates back to 1940, and its decorative edging and lack of shoulders is appropriate for the period. It was built when IA 264, originally part of IA 10, was straightened north of town and replaced one built in 1900.

Posted in Construction | Comments Off on Linn Grove bridge to be replaced
Mar 05

2021 Lincoln Highway conference cancelled

Posted on Friday, March 5, 2021, at 10:00 AM by Jeff


June 13, 2011: Route 66 Visitors Center at the Joliet Area Historical Museum, in a city I will not be visiting this summer.

The 2021 Lincoln Highway Association conference, which was going to be in Joliet after the 2020 conference set for there was cancelled, has also been cancelled. The 2022 conference remains set for Joliet, with Sacramento to follow.

It took until receiving my issue of the Lincoln Highway Forum to know about this for sure. The decision had to have been made in late January or early February.

Sigh.

Posted in Uncategorized | Comments Off on 2021 Lincoln Highway conference cancelled
Mar 03

Why does ‘Nomadland’ use old license plates?

Posted on Wednesday, March 3, 2021, at 10:00 AM by Jeff

In the embedded tweet is a poster for the streaming movie Nomadland. It should take about five seconds to see where I’m going with this post. The states are ordered by their admission to the Union, which is a neat thing that could stand to be used more widely. I’d absolutely endorse this order for roll-calls at national political conventions.

As far as I know, the movie is not a period piece. So why are many of the license plates depicted decades old? From what I can see:

  • Iowa’s is, of course, the 1986 series with the “86” taken off the upper right corner. The font is just a hair off — the “D” is a little different and looks like an inverse of Michigan in the same row; it should look more like Connecticut’s.
  • Illinois’ is the 1980s/1990s version.
  • Wisconsin’s design also dates back to the 1980s. The state actually is using the same style today but went to black, seven-character plates in 2017.
  • Nebraska’s is from a short period in the 1980s.
  • Georgia retains the 1990 label at the top.
  • Ohio is its 2003 Bicentennial version.
  • Minnesota and the Dakotas, and maybe a couple others, aren’t embossed but the vast majority of the rest clearly are. However, embossed plates began to disappear in the mid-2000s.
  • Typography for some, including Idaho, absolutely screams 1980s.
  • Oklahoma is a late 1990s-through-2010 design.
  • Other states’ plates have website addresses on them, so they’re obviously somewhat recent if not current.

A potential explanation for this that comes to mind is something of a depressing one: License plates of the 2020s are too similar to each other. Aside from Illinois’ red, Iowa and surrounding states now use black lettering. Many, many states — including, as seen on the poster, Kansas and Washington — use some version of a light blue gradient/graphic background. Iowa’s white-on-blue 1986 series was clean and distinctive, something that cannot be said for today’s design.

Another possibility pops up with a study of the Wyoming plate, which does not include the famous cowboy silhouette. That symbol, it turns out, is a trademark of the state of Wyoming. Maybe there’s something about infringement going on. On the other hand, it’s not consistent, as Kentucky’s “Unbridled Spirit” and South Dakota’s “Great Faces. Great Places.” slogans are just fine.

I will give the promotions/design team credit for using actual plates as the basis for the “NMDLND” letters. It’s just really weird that they went with an assortment of eras.

Posted in License Plates | Comments Off on Why does ‘Nomadland’ use old license plates?
Mar 01

Lincoln Highway, Historic 20 get special designations

Posted on Monday, March 1, 2021, at 10:10 AM by Jeff


September 28, 2014: A painting of Youngville Station in Benton County, inside Youngville Station, at the now-interchange of US 30 and US 218.

The Historic 20 Route Association is Bryan Farr’s brainchild, and his decade of work has paid off: The Iowa DOT has approved the original route of US 20 as an auto trail. “Original route” makes some concessions to today’s roads, but by and large it’s pretty close to what one would have driven across Iowa in the late 1920s. Stories: Manchester Press, KCIM-AM, press release from the association (if that doesn’t work, here’s the Facebook page). Also, a KTIV story and video from last summer.

The Lincoln Highway in Iowa is part of the Lincoln Highway National Heritage Byway approved in January. Although the Lincoln ran coast to coast, the byway designation for now is only in Nebraska, Iowa, and Illinois. Nebraska does not sign the 1913 Lincoln, but rather the paved version that hugs the Union Pacific Railroad and goes through Blair. Stories: Clinton Herald, WHBF, Raccoon Valley Radio. That application is through the hard work of Prairie Rivers of Iowa.

Nebraska’s Lincoln Highway Historic Byway Guide is available as a PDF.

In the past decade there has been wider recognition of historic highways in Iowa. Congratulations to those working to make that happen.

Posted in Highway Miscellaneous, Maps | Comments Off on Lincoln Highway, Historic 20 get special designations
Feb 26

Mid-Iowa Council’s first female Eagle Scouts

Posted on Friday, February 26, 2021, at 10:01 AM by Jeff

Girls in Ankeny and Ottumwa are the first two in central Iowa to become Eagle Scouts after changes to Scouting opened the doors to them. Stories: Des Moines Register, KYOU (with video).

They are among the first 1,000 girls nationwide to make Eagle, all with an official date of February 8 to coincide with the anniversary of the creation of the Boy Scouts of America. Interestingly, the Register’s article pegs the percentage of Scouts who become Eagles at 6%, not 4% as (formerly?) promoted by the National Eagle Scout Association.

Tama County is included in the Mid-Iowa Council, so they are my sorta-cohorts, organization-wise. The Mid-Iowa Council’s summer camp, Mitigwa, means “Maker of Men”, so we might have to fudge things slightly on that end from now on. It’s the Scout spirit that counts, after all.

Posted in Iowa Miscellaneous | Comments Off on Mid-Iowa Council’s first female Eagle Scouts
Feb 24

School enrollment analysis, 2020-21

Posted on Wednesday, February 24, 2021, at 10:00 AM by Jeff

The first takeaway from the 2020-21 certified enrollment list is the most obvious: There were big drops across the board. Growing districts that had not seen decreases in years if not the century to date (Ankeny!) lost kids.

  • There were no official consolidations for the second time in the past decade (2017). A handful that have united their sports teams to the point that new facilities are designed to reflect it remain legally separated.
  • Of Iowa’s 25 largest districts, only 5 saw gains: Waukee, Cedar Falls, Ottumwa, Fort Dodge (barely), and Clinton.
  • 38 districts have enrollments under 300; of those, 19 have their own high school. Some are in partial-day sharing with others.
  • Des Moines’ enrollment is about the bottom 96 combined.
  • In the past five school years, Waukee added the entire enrollment equivalents of Earlham, Cardinal, Lake Mills, East Union, and Harris-Lake Park.
  • In the past five school years, Ankeny added the entire enrollment equivalents of Sidney, Turkey Valley, Calamus-Wheatland, and Laurens-Marathon.
  • In the past five school years, Iowa City and Clear Creek Amana, between them, added the entire enrollment equivalents of Coon Rapids-Bayard, Janesville, Ar-We-Va, and Springville (but this year lost the enrollment of Lu Verne). This is a combined number, but I think this method is the best way to deal with the issue of North Liberty being split between them.
  • By the way, the Class of 2021 was born in 2002-03. I have MP3 files that are older.

Here is another way to illustrate the continued gains of limited areas at the cost of everyone else:

During the 2010s, overall state enrollment showed a steady increase, but the bulk of the state grew at a much lower rate. The six districts noted in the legend accounted for 6% of the state public school student body in 2001; it’s 11.35% today. To get 11.35% of student enrollment counting up from the bottom, we need 42% of Iowa’s districts (138 out of 327), from Diagonal and Stratford up to Gladbrook-Reinbeck and Treynor.

Des Moines Independent, by far the largest in Iowa, has steadily accounted for around 6.5%. Des Moines plus the six singled out above — not even counting other extremely large districts — account for more than one-sixth of all Iowa public school kids.

When Waukee’s second high school opens this fall (for certain definitions of “open”?), West Des Moines will once again become Iowa’s largest single-high-school district, a position it hasn’t held for nearly a decade. Waukee’s 10th elementary school is expected to open in the fall of 2022. Its estimated 600 students alone would be bigger than 145 districts — Nashua-Plainfield and everyone smaller.

A significant chunk of this, including the graphic, was ripped up after discovering a mismatch between my district list, school codes, and the enrollment numbers. If something still seems off, let me know.
Posted in Schools | Comments Off on School enrollment analysis, 2020-21