Buried utility lines helping improve Cedar Rapids streetscapes

Have you noticed?

An $8.5 million street improvement project on First Avenue East between Tama Street and 40th Street near Collins Road reflects a new city mind-set when it comes to building or reconstructing streets: make them look better and cater to pedestrians and bicyclists in addition to motor vehicles.

“I've had several people say to me, ‘You can see the sky now. You can see the sky better when you go to Lindale Mall,' ” said council member Monica Vernon, who criticized the aesthetics of some street projects before she was elected.

The change - “complete streets” and “context sensitive design” are a couple of names for the approach - is the result of putting utility lines underground and taking down utility poles along the project route.

Rob Davis, the city's engineering manager, said the entire Collins Road NE corridor, which is being widened to three lanes in each direction, will do away with most aboveground utility lines as the project that extends to Center Point Road NE is completed in the years ahead.

Likewise, he said many of the utility lines along First Avenue East likely will end up underground, as they are now from Tama Street NE to 40th Street, as the city improves the street over time.

Davis said he's not surprised that people notice a change. He recalled his own experience a few years ago on being shown a photo of traffic congestion on Collins Road NE. Davis said he couldn't see the congestion for the visual clutter.

“There were wires everywhere in that photo,” he said. “And I think people have gotten so used to seeing all that, that it is a big change when it's all gone.”

Vernon said Cedar Rapids is hardly “first to the game” among communities in deciding to adopt a “complete-streets” approach to road reconstruction, which emphasizes sidewalks and trees and underground utility lines where possible. She points to the city of Coralville as one city that has done a good job with utility lines.

To start, Cedar Rapids is focusing on its most widely used streets, like First Avenue, she said.

“First Avenue is definitely a signature street,” Vernon said. “It's the glue that holds the city's quadrants together. And we have so many people traveling on it, and you are welcoming people to the community with it.”

She and Davis said beautifying the city is only one benefit of putting utility lines underground

Underground lines, they say, can't fall in ice storms and high winds and they make for fewer utility poles to crash into. Vernon said she's seen studies where roads become safer with less clutter.

Davis added that trees along streets can grow taller and don't need to be trimmed in odd ways to account for utility lines.

There is some additional expense to putting utility lines underground, Vernon said, so such a step for now will be taken only as the city is rebuilding certain streets, including opening up the ground as part of the work.

Davis said distribution lines are the best candidates for putting underground, while transmission lines - like those on Mount Vernon Road SE and Council Street NE - are not because of cost.

He said the City Council approved the additional expense of $393,944 to move distribution lines underground as part of the

$8.5 million phase of the Collins Road-First Avenue project.

The council also has agreed to spend $60,745 to move utilities underground along 33rd Avenue SW from Edgewood Road SW to Remington Street SW; $124,336 to move some on Seventh Street NE/SE from A Avenue NE to Eighth Avenue SE; and $231,023 to do the same on Third Street SE between Fifth and 10th avenues SE.

Such spending needs to be seen in a context, Davis suggested, noting that putting the utilities underground on the current Collins Road-First Avenue work represents less than 5 percent of the total project cost.

He compares the choice to what most do when they buy a new car: They look at the base-priced model, and then pick some upgrades.

“People do that all the time in their personal lives,” Davis said. “Now we're doing that with streets. Do you want the standard paving, or the upgraded?”