Iowa Highway Ends (etc.)

KCRG led off Sunday night’s newscast (autoplay video) with a story about the closure of the Black Hawk Bridge between Lansing and De Soto, Wisconsin.

The free car ferry to take its place while construction continues on its replacement won’t be up for a month. It’s good there won’t be a long break, but it is peak leaf-peeping season — or in northeast Iowa, just-past-peak leaf-peeping season. That is, if there are leaves worth peeping at, since drought conditions have hurt colors.

The Black Hawk Bridge at Lansing, a Driftless Area landmark for nearly a century, will close forever at 7 AM on Oct. 20. Stories: Des Moines Register, Milwaukee Journal Sentinel, KCRG (short clip), Iowa DOT press release. The original goal was to keep the bridge open while its replacement was built, but that turned out not to be feasible.

Main Street Lansing is having a daylong farewell celebration on Saturday.

The Iowa and Wisconsin DOTs have worked on establishing a car ferry that will cross the river during the closure period until the new bridge opens sometime in 2027. It’s currently pegged for “spring” but we’re talking northeast Iowa here, so there could be hard ground until April followed by a month of mud.

The La Crosse Tribune reports that the cost of the bridge has gone up from $140 million to $160 million. The free ferry will hold up to 12 cars per trip, the Tribune says.

WIZM radio in La Crosse interviewed the Iowa DOT project manager. Clayton Burke told the station then that the current bridge will be removed by the end of this year, although in August he was thinking early 2026.

After US 63 crosses I-70 in Missouri, the contours of the countryside change significantly. Northern Missouri has hills, but in southern Missouri, well, the shortest distance between two points is secondary to the HILLS.

On Aug. 21, the Missouri DOT (MoDOT) had a public meeting/open house on a project proposed so long ago that a new Environmental Impact Statement had to be created. The original EIS from 2009 was reaffirmed this year.

MoDOT wants to extend the four-lane alignment of US 63 south of US 50 and around the town of Westphalia. This would be a complete relocation with one exit, and it’s not at MO 133. MoDOT’s FAQ says “Building an interchange at Route 133 would involve changing the alignment of Route 133, building excessively long ramps, and disrupting more right of way than the current proposal.”

The estimated cost, at least right now, is $83.7 million. It won’t be completed until the end of 2029 at the earliest.

A DOT meeting about the US 61 Wapello bypass will be held Wednesday evening, according to a press release from the DOT. At publication time, a PDF was not available. The line on the map shown on the website appears only to go from present 61 south of Wapello to County Road G62, leaving the north half unaccounted for.

The most recent five-year plan has IA 78 to IA 92 included as a single project with multiple entries. The bulk of the grading is to be done in FY27 (2026-27) with paving in FY29-30. That means the bypass and full four-lane US 61 might not be finished until 2031.

Relatedly, via Jason Hancock, via only a Facebook post from the Des Moines County Sheriff’s Department, the Mediapolis bypass opened the day after Labor Day.