Highway Page Updates — 2021
December 16:
- A few exit list updates:
- I-380: According to Mark Odor, Tiffin is now signed as a secondary destination at Exit 2. (There is no such sign for southbound traffic yet, but signing plans show that one will be put up in the future.)
- US 75/IA 60: Morningside College in Sioux City is now Morningside University.
- One update that hasn't been made yet for a forthcoming change: The Dubuque Telegraph-Herald reported on December 13 (link may be behind a paywall) that IA 136 will be removed from the redundant overlap with US 52 between Dyersville and Luxemburg soon, with the Dubuque County Board of Supervisors expected to approve rural address updates later this month. As usual, updates to the highway listings won't be made until I can confirm that signs have been taken down in the field, so please let me know if you notice any signing changes.
December 3: After four years of construction, the billion-dollar I-74 bridge in the Quad Cities was dedicated on Wednesday and the new Illinois-bound span opened to traffic late last night. (News coverage: Quad-City Times, KWQC-TV, WHBF-TV, and WQAD-TV.) Updates have been made to the I-74 and US 6 highway listings, the Highways of Davenport and Bettendorf page, and the I-74 Quad Cities exit list. (While I-74 will be at least six lanes wide from Middle Road through the Avenue of the Cities in Moline, I have not added lane configurations to the exit list yet since work is still going on.)
November 17: Northbound I-29 at the vicinity of I-480 in Council Bluffs has closed through the summer of 2023 to continue reconstructing the interchange with I-480, according to this news release from the Iowa DOT. Since this is a long-term closure of more than a year, I have updated the I-29 south, I-80 west, I-480, and I-880 exit lists accordingly.
November 4:
- I've added a few honorary route designations to highway listings that didn't have them:
- The four-lane US 61 between Mediapolis and Burlington is expected to be finished in 2022, per the Iowa DOT's major project page. I was in the area on October 23 and while head-to-head traffic is using the new lanes, resurfacing of the existing lanes still needs to be done.
- Exit list updates:
- I-35 north: The South Fork of the Iowa River is signed around mile marker 149. (On a side note, some counties sign creek crossings and I've seen signs for ditches along US 20 in Hamilton County, but I chose not to include them on the exit lists since not every county does so.)
- I-80 east: Exit 239A westbound is closed for the next two years to build a new ramp to southbound US 218.
- Avenue of the Saints north: Work has begun on the interchange with US 218 north in Floyd, which is slated for completion in 2023. I have added the future exit number and future signage, which came from the signing plans from the July contract lettings, to the exit list.
- US 20 east: The DMASWA (Dubuque Metropolitan Area Solid Waste Agency) Landfill is now signed at Exit 314. (This is the first time I've honestly seen a landfill signed at a freeway exit anywhere.)
- On that note, signs are up for the future Exit 311, the Swiss Valley Road/North Cascade Road interchange, but it wasn't open when I drove by it on October 30.
- US 61 north: The Tamarack Business Park is now signed at Exit 184.
- US 151: Made some minor updates around Marion.
September 22: According to Street View images taken earlier this month, signing of I-680 has finally removed from the former concurrency with I-29 that existed before the designation of I-880, as all mentions of I-680 along I-29 have either been removed or greened out. The I-680 and I-880 exit lists have also been updated.
September 21:
- Inspired by the recent release of 2020 census data (population figures can be found at the Iowa State Data Center), I have reviewed all of the route listings and updated which cities are along each active highway. When this site first started, online mapping was in its infancy and detailed map data was harder to find, so I just listed which cities had dots on the Iowa transportation map for each route. Now, using data from the Iowa DOT Open Data page for city map boundaries on ArcGIS, I have updated the criteria so that the highway must go through the city limits, or that the city limits must touch the highway or its right of way, in order to be listed as a city along that route. I am keeping a one-mile leeway for Interstate highways and other freeways, but the city must be served by its own exit.
- Exit list updates:
- US 20 central: The visitor information center in the truck stop at the IA 14 interchange is now signed at Exit 208.
- Avenue of the Saints south: According to detour signs up as of mid-August and permanent signing plans from the Iowa DOT document library, the permanent exit number for US 218 and I-80 is Exit 96 instead of 97.
August 9: According to this Facebook post from the Iowa DOT's Council Bluffs Interstate reconstruction page, the speed limits on eastbound I-80 and southbound I-29 have both been raised to 65 MPH, making the speed limits equal in both directions.
July 31:
- Wayne Faas reported that the four-lane US 30 east of Tama opened June 2, a day earlier than previously reported.
- On the subject of US 30, AASHTO approved Iowa's application for a Business US 30 through Mount Vernon and Lisbon during their spring 2020 meeting. However, I was in the area last week and there are no Business US 30 signs aside from street names through both cities. (Requests from this and previous AASHTO meetings can be found on this Wikipedia page.) The maps included with the request to AASHTO labeled the old segment of US 30 there as IA 830, which is confirmed through the Iowa DOT's county maps of Linn and Cedar counties (which mislabeled it as US 830). No listing was created because the Iowa Transportation Commission approved transferring this segment to local jurisdictions on December 8, 2020.
- Exit list updates:
- I-29 south: As work south of the "dual divided freeway" in Council Bluffs is mostly done, I moved the construction alert to just north of the split with I-80.
- I-480: With work underway on reconstructing the I-29/480 interchange, I added a construction alert to this listing.
- US 30 east: Cornell College has replaced Martelle at Exit 265.
- US 61 north: Northbound Exit 124 in Mount Joy is now signed as Exit 124A-B, just like it was when during the 1990s and 2000s. Nothing has changed southbound.
June 22:
- According to the 2022-2026 state transportation plan:
- Widening of I-35/I-80 through Urbandale and Clive to eight lanes is programmed for 2025 and 2026.
- Widening of I-380 through North Liberty is programmed for 2025, while a new interchange with Tower Terrace Road in Hiawatha is programmed for 2022.
- Paving of the four-lane US 61 bypass of Mediapolis is programmed for 2024, and paving from Mediapolis to IA 78 is programmed for 2026. Grading for the last expressway segment through Wapello is also programmed for 2026.
- Paving of the US 63 north bypass of Oskaloosa is programmed for 2026.
- Removal of the last intersections of US 218/IA 27 between Waverly and Janesville is programmed for 2025.
- Exit list updates:
- As of June 11, the I-29/80 dual, divided freeway in Council Bluffs is now open to three local and three express lanes in each direction, although the eastbound speed limit has yet to change.
- Also, the Bob Feller Museum has been removed from signs at I-80 Exit 113, seven years after it closed.
- I also updated exit information on I-80 between Omaha and Lincoln, NE.
June 6:
- Per this article in the Tama-Toledo News Chronicle, the four-lane US 30 between Tama and X Avenue in eastern Tama County opened last Thursday.
- Exit list updates:
- Avenue of the Saints north: Minor updates to tourist info center signing around Charles City and Nashua. Also, the recently-released 2021-2022 state map labels the two Cedar Falls exits as Exits 183 and 184 on the Waterloo/Cedar Falls city map. I have added them to the list even though signing has not changed in the field yet; signing plans to add these exit numbers were released in the May 2021 contract letting.
- I-29 south: Per 511ia.org, Exit 54B to North 35th Street in Council Bluffs has permanently closed.
- I-74 Quad Cities: After driving the new bridge for the first time over Memorial Day weekend, I've updated exit numbering in downtown Moline, as the former eastbound Exit 2 is now posted as Exit 1B even though it is still posted as Exit 2 westbound. The reconstructed River Drive/3rd Street signing information is based on signing plans in the Iowa DOT document library posted back in October 2018.
May 17:
- Recently the FHWA's National Highway System maps and the Iowa DOT NHS map were updated to remove any distinction between the original NHS segments from 1991 and the MAP-21 segments (many of which are small segments in cities and urban areas with more than 5,000 people) that were added in 2012. Because of the expanded NHS definition, NHS segments and Iowa Commercial and Industrial Network segments are now listed separately on all US and the appropriate state highway listings, while the About this Site page has also been updated.
- Mark Odor let me know that the West Penn Street name was added to signing at I-380 Exit 4. In addition, some signing changes on I-80 in the Iowa City area that were part of the same signing contract letting in late July have been confirmed through two BigRigTravels videos on YouTube (westbound, starting around 3:45:00, and eastbound, starting around 1:15:00):
- Exit 242: Xtream Arena is now on the main sign, while the VA Medical Center has moved to the secondary sign and the Hospitals and Sports area is now signed as "University of Iowa Hospital - Athletics".
- Exit 244: The University of Iowa's Old Capitol Area is now signed as the "Main Campus".
- Exit 246: Solon is now on the main exit sign, with Mount Vernon now as a secondary destination.
April 24: While I have not received any updates related to the truncation of IA 3 and decommissioning of IA 32 in Dubuque since the beginning of the year, I did stumble upon a YouTube video which confirms that US 52, IA 3, and IA 32 are no longer signed through the city. I have yet to pinpoint a date for when signs were taken down, so I'll mention "early 2021" as the decommissioning date for now.
March 7: Jeff Morrison passed along some research findings:
- US 75: The original routing went through Little Sioux southward to Mondamin in 1929, just before the segment north of Missouri Valley was paved (even though the 1930 and 1931 maps show it going through Little Sioux before a change in cartography for the 1932 map).
- IA 17 (I), IA 144, and IA 150 (III): A Jefferson Bee article from August 12, 1941, stated that the Greene County engineer "recently confirmed rumors of a change in numbering". The September 12 Perry Press confirmed that the changes were made by then but we are unable to confirm if these changes coincided with the September 4 renumbering of IA 11 to the current IA 150, so I will note that these changes occurred in the month of August 1941.
- IA 38: The 1957 paving south of Monticello was on a new route between Scotch Grove and Center Junction.
- IA 88 (I): The diagonalization occurred in the fall of 1933, and parts of the old segment later became IA 338 and IA 945.
- IA 149: The 1929 alignment change between Martinsburg and Sigourney led to the creation of IA 180.
- IA 150 (III): In 1934, a 12-mile segment between Jefferson and Herndon was shifted a mile and a half to the west, as confirmed by the Jefferson Herald on April 19, 1934.
- IA 176 was created after a short alignment change of IA 2 (I) in 1930.
- IA 221 (I) was decommissioned at the same time as its successor was designated, according to the Storm Lake Register on August 17, 1937.
- IA 244 (I): The west end of the highway actually faced east, as it used two blocks of Maple Street.
- Also, the former Five Seasons/US Cellular Center is now signed as the "Alliant Energy PowerHouse" along I-380 Exit 20B.
February 28:
- I drove through western Iowa yesterday and have made some updates to the I-29 north exit list:
- The Loess Hills State Forest is now signed at Exit 89 northbound; it is still signed at Exit 95 southbound.
- The southbound parking-only rest area near mile marker 92 has permanently closed.
- County Roads E24 and K42 are now signed at Exit 120, a rare case of two county roads being signed at the same exit.
- The reservation at Exit 127 is now signed as the "Nation of the Winnebago Tribe".
- Other exit list updates:
- I-80 central and I-80 east: Mark Odor reported that Exit 239 is no longer signed as Exits 239A-B on eastbound I-80 after the recent flyover ramp opening, with all references to the A-B split on existing signs greened out. Also, Waterloo and Keokuk have been dropped as secondary destinations heading east, as signing plan NHS-080-6(403)239-11-52 in the Iowa DOT's document library confirm. The A-B split and destinations remain on westbound I-80 for the time being.
- US 151: The county park at the intersection with IA 100 was renamed Wanatee Park last September.
January 7:
- According to the project schedule, work on the I-80/I-380/US 218 interchange is now expected to last through 2024. While the first of four flyover ramps (I-80 EB to I-380 NB) opened December 23 (story: KGAN), the old loop ramp from NB US 218/IA 27 to WB I-80 is closed through fall 2023 per 511ia.org. This long-term closure is noted on the Avenue of the Saints south exit list.
- As of December 18, Illinois-bound traffic on I-74 is now using two lanes of the new Iowa-bound span until the new Illinois-bound span opens in late 2021. I have updated the map on the Highways of Davenport and Bettendorf page to show the new alignment of I-74. In the meantime, here is a drone video from the Iowa DOT showing construction progress at the end of 2020.
Past updates:
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© 2021 by Jason Hancock