{"id":9948,"date":"2018-05-22T10:00:56","date_gmt":"2018-05-22T15:00:56","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/iowahighwayends.net\/blog\/?p=9948"},"modified":"2018-05-17T01:54:13","modified_gmt":"2018-05-17T06:54:13","slug":"wapello-bypass-plans-finalized","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/iowahighwayends.net\/blog\/2018\/05\/wapello-bypass-plans-finalized\/","title":{"rendered":"Wapello bypass plans finalized"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Louisa County became the 61st county in the state to have a rural four-lane highway segment when last year&#8217;s upgrade to US 61 opened from the Muscatine County line to south of Grandview. Now, as part of the last step for the US 61 corridor \u2014 and <a href=\"http:\/\/www.news.iowadot.gov\/pim\/2018\/04\/us-61-louisa-county-may-8.html\">most complicated environmentally<\/a> \u2014 the DOT has set its &#8220;preferred alternative&#8221; for a four-lane segment running from <a href=\"https:\/\/iowadot.gov\/pim\/documents\/050818US61LouisaPD.pdf\">north of IA 78 to south of IA 92 <\/a>(PDF). This includes a bypass of Wapello and a new bridge across the Iowa River paralleling the existing one.<\/p>\n<p>The bypass plan blocks off either end of existing 61 in favor of a single exit on the west side of Wapello. It also blocks off J Avenue, part of an ancient (pre-1932 paving) alignment of 61 that went nearer downtown Wapello and crossed the river there (the IA 99 bridge) before heading north to Grandview.<\/p>\n<p>Recent personal experience on this stretch of US 61, my first in over a decade, confirms the necessity of a four-lane road for this corridor. It may also, indirectly, explain why RAGBRAI has only ever been to Wapello and Mediapolis once each (1979 and 2000).<\/p>\n<p>On a related note, <a href=\"http:\/\/www.thehawkeye.com\/news\/20180512\/grading-getting-underway-on-us-61-north-of-burlington\">from the <em>Burlington Hawk Eye<\/em><\/a>, grading is being done between the north side of Burlington and Mediapolis that will include a partial relocation of the new four-lane 61.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Louisa County became the 61st county in the state to have a rural four-lane highway segment when last year&#8217;s upgrade to US 61 opened from the Muscatine County line to south of Grandview. Now, as part of the last step &hellip; <a href=\"https:\/\/iowahighwayends.net\/blog\/2018\/05\/wapello-bypass-plans-finalized\/\">Continue reading <span class=\"meta-nav\">&rarr;<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_links_to":"","_links_to_target":""},"categories":[8],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-9948","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-construction"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/iowahighwayends.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9948","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/iowahighwayends.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/iowahighwayends.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/iowahighwayends.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/iowahighwayends.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=9948"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/iowahighwayends.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9948\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":9964,"href":"https:\/\/iowahighwayends.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9948\/revisions\/9964"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/iowahighwayends.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=9948"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/iowahighwayends.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=9948"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/iowahighwayends.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=9948"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}