State transportation leaders get up-close of Highway 100 extension

A rare visit to Cedar Rapids by the Iowa Transportation Commission Tuesday gave local leaders perhaps their best chance yet to pitch plans for a Tower Terrace Road interchange, Mount-Vernon-Lisbon Bypass and Highway 100 extension.

The $150 million Highway 100 extension project is already in the commission's latest five-year plan. Engineering designs are well under way for a $25 million Cedar River bridge and the $50 million first leg of the project from Edgewood Road to Covington Road.

Commission Chairman Donald Willey said the panel viewed both ends of the Highway 100 project during a driving tour Monday, April 10, of Eastern Iowa projects.

What's lacking is money to build the project, and local leaders said they're making their own plans to secure funds for the project, which received a jumpstart from a modest earmark in a federal funding bill.

“We will not give up,” said Allen Witt, transportation committee chair for the Cedar Rapids Area Chamber of Commerce. “We know there are rumblings out there of difficulty. We have a very strong delegation in Washington and we're going to see them in May.”

Witt said after the meeting that he's hopeful funding can be secured to begin construction of the bridge in 2012. With the commission's support, he said the bridge could be completed in 2013, about the time that construction could begin on the first leg of the extension to Covington Road.

While acknowledging the entire project could not be completed by the goal of 2016, he said the first leg to Covington Road could be completed by that date.

Cedar Rapids Mayor Ron Corbett, Linn County supervisors Linda Langston and Cedar Rapids City Director of Public Works David Elgin all joined in pitching the project. They also pitched the Tower Terrace Road interchange proposed for I-380 in Hiawatha, key to plans to create a major Tower Terrace Corridor providing a northerly east-west link across the entire metro area from I-380 to Highway 13.

Opponent Shearon Elderkin told the commission that the project is a “want, not a need.” She said she is opposed to an upcoming referendum for a 20-year extension of the Local Option Sales Tax because she believes the funds will be used to support the project, which she criticized as unnecessary and damaging to the Rock Island county and state nature preserves.

Ballot language on the referendum specifies that the funds can only be used on existing routes, however.

Marion City Administrator Lon Pluckhahn gave the commission its first complete look at the Tower Terrace Corridor, which as a local project would be funded principally by the four municipalities it crosses – Hiawatha, Robins, Cedar Rapids and Marion.

While the Tower Terrace interchange has never made it into the state's five-year highway plan, the Mount Vernon-Lisbon Bypass was removed from the plan amid a shift in transportation priorities about a decade ago. Local leaders want it back in.

Cedar County Engineer Rob Fangmann joined Lisbon City Administrator Chris Yancey, Lisbon Mayor Pro-Tem John Bardsley and Mount Vernon City Engineer Dan Boggs in arguing for the project to be placed back in the plan.

“We need to get back on that five-year plan so people can get back on track with their lives and know where the highway is going to go and when,” Bardsley told the commission.

Iowa City leaders made a pitch for funding of Amtrak service from Davenport and Chicago in a presentation by Mayor Matt Hayek and Jeff Davidson, the city's planning and community development director. Restoring the city's old Rock Island Railroad depot is part of the city's Riverfront Crossing project to revitalize the Riverside Drive area after relocating the city's wastewater treatment operations from the area.

Coralville Leaders pitched plans to upgrade the First Avenue interchange on I-80, which was supported by a recent interchange justification study. Plans for the $24 million improvement will include new traffic loops in the northeast and southwest quadrant of the interchange and extend the city's trail system. The work will improve traffic flow to the city-developed Iowa River Landing commercial district.