Leaders: Make Tower Terrace Road top regional priority

CEDAR RAPIDS - Key stakeholders from Linn County, Robins, Hiawatha, Marion and Cedar Rapids want to make completion of Tower Terrace Road the No. 1 regional transportation priority, and they want their local communities to put money behind the commitment.

Their hope is that the Iowa Department of Transportation will reward them by adding a new Tower Terrace Road interchange with Interstate 380 in its next five-year highway funding plan, which covers 2018-2022.

The group hopes the interchange would go hand-in-hand with completion of the fragmented Tower Terrace route, which is envisioned as an 8-mile connection from I-380 east to Highway 13.

'Now that the Highway 100 extension is done from a planning perspective - it's being built - the communities as a region need to communicate what the next priority is,” Linn County Supervisor Brent Oleson said at a meeting with about 15 stakeholders last week. 'Most of us believe that is Tower Terrace Road and the interchange.”

The discussion about Tower Terrace came as a precursor to this Thursday's meeting of the Corridor Metropolitan Planning Organization policy board, which includes representatives from local jurisdictions and decides how to allocate federal transportation money.

Oleson, who is on the board, urged an executive committee last month not to recommend Cedar Rapids' request for nearly $1 million to pay for a project tied to the Highway 100 extension. Oleson said he still will support that project, but wanted to 'telegraph” that when financing decisions are made next year, Tower Terrace needs top billing.

'I don't want to keep putting it off,” Oleson said.

At last week's stakeholder meeting, the group of elected officials and administrators said they plan to make a cost-sharing proposal to the Iowa DOT for the Tower Terrace interchange, which clocks in a total of $20 million, by the end of the year.

'We are looking for the local communities to provide an offer,” said Cathy Cutler, a local Iowa DOT transportation planner.

The money could come from locally available federal transportation money, city coffers or other sources such as grants, she said. A construction budget for the rest of Tower Terrace - or lack thereof - isn't a 'project stopper,” she said.

Since the 1970s. planners ave envisioned Tower Terrace as an arterial belt for Marion, Hiawatha, Robins and northern Cedar Rapids. As the area has grown, it has become an issue of safety and traffic congestion relief, said Robins Mayor Chuck Hinz. It also could spur commercial and residential growth, he said.

'Putting Tower Terrace in would have an impact for all communities involved in terms of dealing with traffic and public safety,” Hinz said. 'That is really the top two reasons. We are really looking at this as a regional need.”

Less than half of the proposed Tower Terrace route exists, and the road ends at a T-intersection with Robins Road, 1.4 miles east of the proposed I-380 interchange.

Maps circulated at the meeting last week show two segments of Tower Terrace as being funded but not constructed, including the $10.5 million C Avenue NE in Cedar Rapids near the site for a planned Hy-Vee to Alburnett Road in Marion, and a nub extending east from 10th Street near Linn-Mar Schools.

Costly gaps remain, many without a clear vision for funding.

A stretch from Robins Road to Council Street in Robins and Hiawatha was defunded earlier this year when costs tripled from $5.7 million in the 2008-2011 transportation improvement plan to $18.6 million when two bridges were added. Hinz said Robins can't afford that amount, and needs outside sources to chip in.

The money was reallocated to the C Avenue-Alburnett section instead.

A $9.5 million bridge over Indian Creek in Marion is another expensive component. It has some but not all funding in place.

A 2010 estimate projected $86.5 million to complete a four-lane build of Tower Terrace, or $72.8 million to build it as two lanes and another $25.7 million to expand to four lanes 15 years later, according to a Corridor MPO report. Some of what exists now is two-lanes.

Specific dollar amounts and contributions from each government toward that total were not presented. The 2010 financial analysis broke down the costs as Marion paying 29.3 percent; Linn County 25.6 percent; Cedar Rapids 18.2 percent; Hiawatha 16.2 percent; and Robins 10.7 percent.

A variety of hurdles has slowed progress.

For one, the Corridor MPO scoring criteria favors the existing transportation system over new construction, said Marion City Manager Lon Pluckhahn.

'In my mind, that is the single biggest hurdle you have to overcome with Corridor MPO funding,” he said. 'It's much easier to focus on the immediate needs. It's a challenge for us to explain the overall picture to doing these transportation improvements.”

Tower Terrace scores low by the metric, but Highway 100 also scored low and has received funding, he said.

The Corridor MPO will allocate $930,000 in federal money for roads per year through 2020, and the amount increases to $2.6 million annually from 2021 to 2024. Oleson said the Corridor MPO should prioritize fewer projects, so each get a greater share of the money.

While Oleson and officials from Marion and Hiawatha vocally supported Tower Terrace, others were cautious.

Cedar Rapids City Council member Ralph Russell said even if all the MPO money went to Tower Terrace Road, it would still take more than a decade to pay for it and 'nothing else would get done.”

'I'm not here to say Tower Terrace is not a priority,” he said. '(But) is it the most important priority, and can we funnel all the money to it? No.”

And nothing guarantees an approved interchange justification report, which is a regulatory requirement, he said. The $500,000 report is expected to be done in 2018.

A 2015 interchange justification report wasn't favorable from a federal perspective because of the gaps in the local roads, although it had state support, the DOT's Cutler said.

Hiawatha City Administrator Kim Downs, who is championing the plan, said her city's officials attention turned to Tower Terrace as a priority during planning for a $5.5 million upgrade of Boyson Road, which already has an interchange on I-380. Boyson Road carries about 26,000 vehicles a day near the interstate, the Iowa DOT said.

'It doesn't matter what part of Boyson Road you travel on, it's backed up,” Downs said.

Downs said Hiawatha officials realized the Boyson bridge would likely need to be replaced when I-380 is eventually expanded to six lanes, so a Tower Terrace interchange should be installed first as a traffic safety valve for when the Boyson project occurs.

Downs said the goal is to have local funding lined up to match Iowa DOT funds for the Tower Terrace interchange in fiscal 2021.

Iowa DOT Director Paul Trombino met with mayors and city managers from Robins, Hiawatha, Marion and Cedar Rapids, Oleson, local engineers and planners and representatives from the Iowa DOT local district six office on April 8.

Oleson and Downs said Trombino's 'charge” to get Tower Terrace in the DOT plan was to demonstrate it's a priority.

'We need to put some type of offer on paper so the DOT can see this is what our communities are looking to invest in the interchange,” Downs said.

Trombino did not return a message seeking comment.