Property buyouts for Interstate 80/380 interchange upgrade to begin

The sound of Interstate 80 never stops, although the hum of traffic does fade into white noise from E.J. Merriweather's front lawn, set back from the low-traveled gravel of Kansas Avenue.

His two-story yellow house with nine acres was a 'next move will be to a pine box”-type of commitment for him, his wife, two children and dogs two and a half years ago. He rutted a quarter-mile motocross track in his yard, built a workshop for his motorcycles and an aboveground pool stands in the front.

'I refer to it as my little slice of heaven,” said Merriweather, 47. 'It's good. No other way to put it.”

This stretch of Kansas Avenue - which runs parallel about a football-field south of I-80 near Tiffin - will be among the most-effected areas when the replacement of the I-80/380 interchange kicks off - likely in the second half of 2018.

The five-year, $270 million project, which will be one of the biggest ever in Eastern Iowa, is quickly rolling into view. The Iowa Department of Transportation is beginning the buyout process for 82 acres of commercial and agricultural land, eight acres of residential, four homes - including Merriweather's - timber and part of the Clear Creek watershed.

A public meeting to discuss the project is scheduled for this coming Tuesday, Sept. 29, from 5 to 6:30 p.m. at the Coralville Public Library. Following the meeting, the Iowa DOT will begin negotiations with landowners.

'This (intersection) is highly important to commerce and travel in Eastern Iowa,” said Iowa DOT District 6 transportation planner Cathy Cutler. 'We believe this interchange needs to be modernized for many reasons, including the number of crashes and to meet increasing traffic volumes.”

The project will replace the 50-year-old cloverleaf interchange between 380 and 80, which has been the site of one too many tight turns, rollovers or worse, with a sweeping modern-style design called a turbine intersection.

The 80-380 interchange connects Iowa's largest cities, such as Des Moines, Cedar Rapids, Davenport and Iowa City, and beyond to Chicago and Omaha and Minneapolis and St. Louis.

Disruption will be unavoidable, but two through lanes always will be open in each direction on both interstates for the life of the project, Cutler said. Detours for exits and entrances are still being figured out, she added.

The interstates also will be widened to eight lanes on I-80 between Tiffin and Coral Ridge Mall, and six lanes on I-380 for about a mile south on U.S. Route 218, up to Forevergreen Road on I-380. The I-80 bridge at Jasper Road will be replaced with a longer one.

The Iowa DOT is pushing to move up plans for a new interchange at Forevergreen Road to 2018 to help with detours. That decision is expected by spring.

Driving the van pool

The widening of the interstate and a new exit ramp will cost Lorraine Vogt her home on 340th Street SW, south of I-80. She has lived there since 1967.

She's also losing woods on land west of I-380.

'We are waiting to see if it happens,” Vogt said. 'It's progress. What are you going to do?”

The interstates were built over time, and with it traffic.

I-80 was added as a four-lane highway in 1962. I-380 was connected to the north around 1970, and Route 218 was added from the south in 1982.

The Iowa DOT started discussing an upgrade in 2004, citing a high number of crashes, increasing traffic projections, outdated geometry and design of the cloverleaf, and a need for better merging of traffic.

According to the Iowa DOT, there's been 477 crashes, including six fatal, from 2004-14. The design is problematic as traffic volumes increase and vehicles get bigger, particularly semis, officials said.

'The spacing between the loop ramps limit the space available for vehicles to enter and exit the freeway,” Cutler said. 'The design for the (new) system interchange removes the loop ramps, increasing the speed of the ramps used to either exit or enter the freeway, and eliminates the short weaving sections, by moving the exits and entrance away from one another.”

In the early 1980s, I-80 had 15,500 daily vehicles east of I-380 and 22,000 to the west, while I-380 had 5,500 vehicles per day, and 218 had 8,000. By 2030, I-80 east of I-380 is projected to grow from 56,000 to 100,000, and from 50,000 to 81,000 on I-380 north of the interchange, according to the Iowa DOT.

Mary Thomson, 45, drives the van pool for a daily commute from Cedar Rapids to work at University of Iowa. She is not excited about the prospect of delays during construction, and while she believes this to be a worthwhile project, she said, 'It is, for a lack of a better term, treacherous. There's a lot of confusion.”

On the I-380 bridge, she said, 'People don't know who should go first. We had an accident happen right in front of us. I don't know how we stopped to miss it.”

An interchange justification report and National Environmental Policy Act report were approved in 2009, and the project was added to the Iowa DOT's 2014-18 five-year plan.

‘A lot of calls'

'This is definitely the most significant transportation project because of its impact on so many communities and people,” said Coralville City Administrator Kelly Hayworth, who is working the Iowa DOT on a couple fronts.

'The construction will impact the community for many years. DOT is doing a good job of considering alternatives to help the people that use this corridor on a daily basis.”

The Iowa DOT will erect retaining walls in the woods west of baseball diamonds close to the southeast quadrant of the project, he said. He also is pushing to restore Clear Creek's affected wetlands locally so the community can enjoy the benefits.

The new design has directional ramps bending from one interstate to the other similar to the interchange upgrade near Des Moines of I-80 and I-35.

The new I-80 westbound to 218 southbound ramp will cross over the pine trees in Merriweather's front lawn. Kansas Avenue will be relocated about a half-mile south behind Merriweather's home, which should be long gone by then.

Merriweather didn't realize the project was happening until he got a letter from the Iowa DOT to attend Tuesday's meeting. He first learned of the interstate plans when a neighbor told him the day he moved in 2013. The seller hadn't disclosed it, he said.

Early drafts of the project left his home mostly unscathed, he said. As recently as this spring, he was told, 'live your life like we aren't coming,” he said.

Merriweather is frustrated. He doesn't want to lose his home, but he'll find another stretch of land. What angers him most, though, is the cost, coupled with what he considers a faulty reason for the project.

A fraction of 1 percent of drivers on I-80 are in collisions and that number is going down, yet hundreds of millions are being invested because, in his words, 'People can't obey the speed limit.”

'As a taxpayer, it is ridiculous to me that amount of money is being spent because people don't pay attention in driver's ed and don't know how to merge,” said Merriweather, who also is a Cedar Rapids Police Officer.

After the addition of an eastbound merge lane in 2000 and the widening of I-80 to six lanes between the interchange and Coral Ridge Avenue in 2004, accidents appear to have dropped. Between 1999-2003, the interchange saw about 310 crashes. From 2010-14, the interchange had 191, according to Iowa DOT data.

'I'm not thrilled as a taxpayer because of the amount of money we have to pay for it, but it is needed,” Johnson County Sheriff Lonny Pulkrabek said. 'There are a lot of calls out there, a lot of crashes because of the design.

'I can imagine construction in an area that carries that number of vehicles, it is going to be inconvenient. An increase in crashes is probably likely. People will need to slow down and pay attention.”

The Iowa DOT has been working on several alternatives to get vehicles off the road and reduce congestion in anticipation of the project. Eastern Iowa Council of Governments is spearheading an implementation plan from an Iowa DOT-commissioned transportation study.

A regional van pool and rapid transit bus program are both expected to be launched more than a year before any construction begins. The Iowa DOT is also reaching to major employers to encourage allowing employees to telecommute when possible, is looking to establish more park and ride lots, and new online rideshare program is also being facilitated by the Iowa DOT.