Neighbors can weigh in on Highway 30 bypass around Mt. Vernon and Lisbon

Neighbors have the chance to weigh in next week on the latest try for a Highway 30 bypass around Mount Vernon and Lisbon.

Iowa Department of Transportation staff will present five route options at the meeting from 4:30 to 6:30 p.m. Tuesday at the Lisbon High School cafeteria. The alternatives won't be released until the meeting.

A bypass has been in various stages of planning since the 1980s, said Cathy Cutler, transportation planner at IDOT's District 6 headquarters in Cedar Rapids.

“We've come close to having a project ready to go, but because of funding constraints we haven't been able to do that,” Cutler said. With work underway on a new five-year statewide transportation improvement plan, “we're getting it refreshed again from an environmental point of view.”

The DOT designated a “preservation zone”  last summer for a bypass south of the existing highway from the current end of four-lane highway west of Mount Vernon to about two miles east of Lisbon.

The designation gives DOT authority to review proposed zoning changes, subdivision plats, and building permit applications worth more than $25,000 in the corridor to head off building that could block a new highway.

“We've had maybe five things to review in the past year, and we've passed on all of them,” Cutler said.

Cutler's staff will take comments from Tuesday's meeting into account as they continue field studies on the proposed bypass. The five options reviewed Tuesday should be narrowed by fall. After another round of public meetings the DOT should have a final choice by next summer.

Once that's done, the DOT will complete environmental research on the route before submitting its plan to the federal government. State officials may schedule the project for construction after it's approved by the federal government.

For more information contact Cutler's office at (319)364-0235 or email at catherine.cutler@dot.iowa.gov.