Site updates

Highway Page Updates — 2010

December 26: Thomas Mitchell Park is now signed at I-80 exit #149 in Mitchellville.

December 19:

A new, 21-mile expressway segment of US 20 between IA 4 and Moorland opened on December 15. (News coverage of the ribbon cutting: Fort Dodge Messenger, KTIV in Sioux City) The US 20 and IA 4 route listings have been updated, since US 20 is now following 3½ miles of IA 4 until the next segment of the US 20 expressway opens, and the US 20 west exit list has been extended westward to IA 4. While at it I also updated the title graphic on the Freeway Junctions title page with more recent photos.
Photos from the trip I took to check out this new segment yesterday can be found on my Flickr page. After yesterday's trip and after moving all photos from 2008 onto Flickr, I now have 800 photos there. The Fort Dodge, Ottumwa, and Lincoln Highway sections are now hosted there. I have also removed all remaining photo galleries from Tripod and moved them to Mediacom for the time being. All updated pages are linked from the main Photo Gallery page.

November 29: Another quick US 30 update: According to this DOT press release, the expressway segment between US 65 near Colo and State Center opened today. The highway and exit listings have been updated.

November 28:

The US 30 expressway segment west of Tama/Toledo has opened, but only to two lanes as the eastbound lanes will not be completed until next year. Jeff Morrison noted that this segment opened on November 23. Both interchanges are now open and the exit list has been updated to reflect this. Signs for a new Business US 30 have been posted on westbound US 30, but nothing has been posted on the old US 30 through the two cities.
The Iowa City and Cedar Rapids sections of the Photo Gallery have been moved to Flickr. After uploading photos from Thanksgiving weekend I now have 700 photos on the Flickr site.

November 21: Photo Gallery update:

I have caught up with my backlog from 2010 as all photos from my Labor Day weekend trip are now up. There are now 665 photos on the Flickr page as of today.
The Quad Cities section is now hosted on Flickr; the link goes to a collection of four sets for Davenport, Bettendorf, outlying areas of Scott County, and the Illinois side.
I have also added new sections for Clinton, Fort Madison/Keokuk, and Mount Pleasant, all of which are linked from the main Photo Gallery page. I have also moved some photos from the Eastern Iowa Odds & Ends page to the Flickr page.

November 14:

New county maps dated January 1, 2010, are online on the DOT's website. Two unsigned highways in Eddyville — IA 342 (II) and IA 437 — are no longer on the Eddyville map so I have converted them to the decommissioned format.
Meanwhile, in order to give these highways the same treatment as other unsigned highways, I have converted IA 102 (New Sharon), 107 (Meservey and Thornton), and 965 (Coralville) from the decommissioned listing format to the unsigned listing format since they still have segments in the aforementioned cities that are still under state jurisdiction. (However, according to the Cerro Gordo Board of Supervisors' meeting notes from July 12, Thornton has agreed to take over its piece of IA 107 on June 30, 2011. The status of the piece of IA 107 in Meservey is still unknown.)

November 9: Recent news:

Part of the relocated US 30 in Tama/Toledo opened on November 1. (Coverage: tamatoledonews.com). The segment west of US 63 is expected to open later in November but most of it will be only two lanes until mid-2011.
The left exit from I-80 to US 65 in Altoona closed on November 7 in preparation for the upcoming reconstruction of the interchange.

October 31: Updates on the migration of the Photo Gallery:

I now have over 500 photos on the Flickr page, as I have posted all photos that I have taken through August plus all Des Moines-area photos from September and October.
The photo gallery sections for Ames, Des Moines, and Burlington have entirely moved to Flickr. (I did not move all of the photos, however, as some of my older photos were of signs that have been taken down and I was unable to get a new photo with a digital camera.) I have also created new sections for Marshalltown, Muscatine, and Newton on Flickr.
In the meantime, I have moved everything that was on the iowahwypix2.tripod.com domain onto Mediacom for now after deleting the Des Moines photo galleries from this site following the move. This includes the Avenue of the Saints and all of the Odds and Ends galleries. See the main Photo Gallery page for the new links.
More photos from my Labor Day weekend trip through eastern Iowa are coming. By the end of November I plan to move the Iowa City and Quad Cities sections to Flickr.
In the meantime, Dave Darby has posted photos of old US 218 in Johnson County. This segment was abandoned when Coralville Lake was built, but the old highway was exposed recently when water levels receded.

September 26: Signs at I-80 at I-88's west end in East Moline have changed, so I updated the exit list.

September 1:

As you may or may not have noticed, I have not updated the Photo Gallery in a while. While I have been taking new photos during the past year and a half, time certainly has been one factor in the lack of updates, but another factor has been that of space. With monitor resolutions and file sizes getting bigger, there is not enough room to host all my photos on the servers that I currently have. With that I have posted new photos that I have taken from the spring of 2009 through the first half of 2010 on my Flickr page, which is where I posted the special gallery from the flood of 2008. Going forward all new photos will be posted on the Flickr page, which gives me the ability to:

Post larger, better quality images
Place photos in multiple albums, or "sets", as I have created some sets based on road trips in addition to places
Tag photos with names of highways, cities, and counties, in addition to other keywords such as Clearview signs
Show where the photo was taken on an interactive map
Allow others to comment on photos (although I reserve the right to delete anything inappropriate)

Exit list updates:

Dan Drackley has noticed that signs for the Boys Town exit along US 6 now include the street name, 137th Street.
The Salisbury House and Gardens is now posted at I-235 exit 5B.
A new traffic signal is about to be activated on IA 141 south of the IA 44 interchange in Grimes.

August 1:

I updated the Scenic and Historic Routes page to note that the Mormon Trail Auto Tour Route goes through Fort Madison instead of Keokuk, and I also listed the Great River Road's street route in Keokuk.
Exit list updates:

Secondary signs have changed along US 34 exits 212 and 214 in Fairfield, and at I-280 exit 11A in Rock Island.
Jeff Morrison noted that signs for the now-closed VA Medical Center in Knoxville have been removed from IA 5/92.

July 11: Some exit list updates based on my 4th of July weekend travels:

The speed limit on I-35 in Ames has been lowered from 70 to 65 MPH.
Signage at I-80 exit 70 and I-380 exit 55 has changed.
I also removed the "expressway ends" note from the south end of the US 63 in New Hampton list after the four-lane segment was extended southward from US 18 and IA 346.

June 20: The DOT's 2011-2015 transportation plan has been approved, and these are the highlights:

Widening of I-80 in the Iowa City area is programmed for completion in 2012. Reconstruction of I-29 and I-80 in Council Bluffs, I-29 in Sioux City, and I-35 in West Des Moines is scheduled for all five years of the plan.
Paving for the new four-lane US 20 between Sac County Road N14 and IA 4 is programmed for 2012, and paving from N14 westward to US 71 is programmed for 2013. Also, grading for two new lanes between Moville and Correctionville is programmed for 2015.
Right-of-way acquisition for a new US 30 expressway segment in western Benton County is programmed for 2014 and 2015.
Paving for the relocated US 34 west of I-29, including a new bridge to Nebraska, is programmed for 2013.
Grading for an expressway extension of US 61 in northern Louisa County — from the current south end of the expressway to the point near Grandview where it splits from IA 92 — is programmed for 2015.
The remaining two-lane segment of US 63 in Bremer County is expected to be widened in 2012.
Right-of-way acquision of the IA 100 between County Road W36 and Edgewood Road in Cedar Rapids is now programmed for 2012 and 2013; I also linked to a YouTube video with aerial views of the project.

May 31:

The new Veterans Memorial Bridge between Omaha and Council Bluffs opened last Friday, so I updated the US 275 and IA 92 listings to note this.
The former IA 949 east of Glenwood is signed as County Road H30.
I also made some minor updates to the US 75 Kennedy Freeway and I-480 exit lists.

May 9: Jeff Morrison moved his Iowa Highway Ends page, so I updated the links to all terminus photo pages from the highway listings.

April 11: A visitor center is now signed along IA 163 exit 40 in Pella.

March 7: I replaced the 2005 map on the Highways of Des Moines page with a 2010 map, which shows areas that were annexed by the city of Des Moines last year.

February 28:

More updates based on Jeff Morrison's research into route logs from the 1980s and 1990s:

IA 118 was decommissioned in 1989 and included part of Market Street in Steamboat Rock in addition to County Road S56.
IA 125 followed Main Street in Salem for two blocks in addition to County Road J20.
IA 155 (II) followed 8th Avenue and 3rd Street in Nodaway in addition to County Road N26.
IA 223 followed Main Street into Baxter before the highway was straightened in 1980.
IA 245 was decommissioned outside of Rhodes in 1988 and decommissioned altogether in 1990.
IA 270 also included part of present-day County Road J20.
IA 272 was truncated west of Elma's city limits in 1990.
IA 287 (III) followed part of County Road E44 plus Main Street in Newhall before 1980.
IA 311 was truncated west of Liscomb's east city limits in 1980.
The pieces of IA 317 inside of Zearing and IA 328 in Galva were turned over in 1981 even though the rest of those roads were decommissioned in 1980.
IA 339 also followed part of Main Street and Iowa Avenue in George.
IA 351 and 352 were truncated at the city limits of their respective cities in 1980.
IA 356 was decommissioned in 1981 and followed part of Main Street in Packwood.
IA 364 followed Chestnut Street into Harpers Ferry until 1982.
IA 379 also followed Main Street in Joice.
IA 394 (I) ended at the entrance to the Iowa Army Ammunition Plant north of Augusta.
IA 408 followed part of County Road P60 and Smart Street in Lu Verne.

According to Dennis Swanson, the former segment of US 63 near Frederika that was bypassed by a new four-lane diagonal segment in 2009 is now unsigned IA 463. It will be turned over to Bremer County once the road is resurfaced.
Exit list updates:

Calkins Nature Area is now signed at US 20 exit 162.
Kirkwood Community College's Monticello campus is now signed in both directions at US 151 exit 63.

January 31: Jeff Morrison passed along some new research findings:

Part of the former IA 108 in Delta was directly replaced by the extended IA 21 in 1980.
IA 205 went all the way through Milo until 1990, when its east end was truncated to Milo's west city limits.
IA 406 followed Gear Avenue from its old route on Agency Street to the newly-opened US 34 from 1976 to 1981.
IA 424 (I) outside of Britt was on route logs between 1969 and 1980 even though it disappeared from the state highway map after 1969.
In addition, the planned IA 3 bypass of Akron was not built, in large part after a planned biodiesel plant was not built there.

January 18:

Dan Drackley pointed out an exit list correction regarding I-80 exit 442 near Omaha.
I also made a few minor updates to the About This Site page.

Past updates:

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