Funding cut leaves Highway 100 extension, Highway 30 widening out of plan

Three major highway construction projects in Eastern Iowa and one in western Iowa don't get construction funds in the state's draft five-year transportation program because of a reduction in federal funding.

The Iowa Transportation Commission released its five-year transportation improvement program Tuesday. It calls for $2.3 billion to be spent for highway construction and right-of-way acquisition from state fiscal year 2012, which begins in July, through 2016.

With funds limited, the commission said it emphasized maintenance in the highway plan. More than $1.3 billion will be spent on highway preservation.

The long-awaited construction of the I-74 widening and improvement project in Scott County, eventually slated to include a new Mississippi River bridge, was the big addition to the plan in Eastern Iowa. The plan calls for over $20 million to be spent on I-74 in the five years, most of it for right of way. Grading and paving would begin in 2016.

The commission said projects scheduled to be completed in the 2010 highway program remain on schedule.

Due to a reduction in projected federal revenue, a commission statement said that it has delayed by one year the start of construction on new multiyear, noninterstate capacity and economic development transportation projects.

Caught up in the freeze are U.S. 30 widening in Benton County, U.S. 61 widening in Louisa County, and the Highway 100 extension in Linn County.

In Western Iowa, the freeze also affected the U.S. 20 widening project in Woodbury County.

The Highway 100 extension in Linn County is still slated to receive about $1.8 million in each of the first two years for right-of-way acquisition, along with $600,000 for wetland mitigation in 2012, and $730,000 for wetland mitigation in 2014.

The lack of construction funding isn't a significant setback to hopes for the project, said Allen Witt, transportation committee chair for the Cedar Rapids Area Chamber of Commerce, which has taken a leading role backing the project.

Witt said the design work on a Cedar River bridge that's crucial to the project won't be completed until 2012 anyway. By that time, the commission will be coming out with a new five-year plan.

The election of transportation commission member Amy Reasner of Cedar Rapids to the commission's chairmanship Tuesday is also a hopeful sign for the project, Witt said. The commission chair has an important role in setting the commission's agenda, Witt said, and the Iowa Transportation Commission hasn't had a chair from the Cedar Rapids area since Tom Aller, now president of Interstate Power & Light, was chair over a decade ago.

Reasner, an attorney with Lynch Dallas in Cedar Rapids, was appointed to the commission by former Gov. Tom Vilsack three years ago.

The five-year highway plan also calls for major investments in upgrading I-29 in Sioux City and I-29/80/480 in Council Bluffs.