Corbett makes another push for Highway 100 extension

Mayor Ron Corbett made a pitch to the state Transportation Commission to put Highway 100 Extension back in its five-year plan to aid Cedar Rapids and Linn County in meeting future transportation needs as well as current flood recovery efforts.

Getting into the state's five-year construction plans is seen as a prerequisite for a project to obtain federal funding, which will be necessary to complete the link from Edgewood Road to Highway 30.

“It's important for this community to continue to push for this project,” Corbett said. “It really is the final piece of this project.

“For our town, after suffering a major flood, we're still in a recovery mode,” he said. “That's where most of our attention has been and will continue to be. But keeping our eye on the future is just as important as solving the problems of today and that's why this project is so important to us.”

On a conference call with the commission this morning, Corbett emphasized the unanimous support of the City Council, Linn County supervisors and the County Conservation Board in seeking to have the project included in the DOT road map for highway construction over the next five years.

However, Wallace Taylor of the Sierra Club told commissioners the only benefit will be to private developers along the proposed road and referred the to Highway 100 Extension as a “30-year project in search of a purpose.”

Corbett outlined several purposes for completing the extension, saying it goes beyond transportation

“It has significant economic impact,” he said.

The project would reduce congestion on the community's road network, provide an efficient connection between Cedar Rapids' west side and Interstate 380 as well as from northeast Cedar Rapids and Marion to the  interstate, accommodate growth on the west-side and provide an alternate route when major accidents delay traffic on Interstate 380, Corbett said.

As a sign of community-wide support, Corbett told commissioners the council recently steered nearly $3 million in locally controlled road funds to the long-delayed project. The re-allocation was approved by the Metropolitan Planning Organization, which includes represent6atives of Marion, Hiawatha and Fairfax, he said.

Taylor and his wife, Pam Mackey Taylor, reminded the commissioners the Highway 100 Extension project, which would take Highway 100 seven miles west and south from Edgewood Road to Highway 30, had been in the state five-year plan several years ago until the project was delayed over unresolved questions about its proximity to the county's Rock Island Preserve. Linn County officials accepted a donation of land to add to the preserve from a developer opposed to the project, a move that helped put the project on hold.

Although Corbett said the Conservation Board now unanimously supports Highway 100, the couple said that's because supervisors have stacked the board with handpicked members who support the highway.

They have systematically “prejudiced” the project through those appointments and the recent re-allocation of approximately $3 million to the project, Taylor said.

The route would take the highway through the Rock Island Preserve, which has one of the most diverse set of species found on public lands, including butterflies, turtles and plants, Mackey Taylor said. Building a highway through that would change the preserve's unique hydrology, putting the plants at risk, she said.

Also, the development of the highway extension would only add to traffic congestion on Collins Road, Mackey Taylor said.

It would make sense to move the highway extension a couple of miles to the north to Tower Terrace Road area, which is being eyed by Marion for development and an interstate interchange, she said.

Commissioners did not comment on the merits of either presentation. They had reviewed the route Monday.

They commission typically approves its five-year plan in June.