116 3rd St SE
Cedar Rapids, Iowa 52401
First Avenue eastbound ramp to I-80 to open soon in Coralville
Goal is to have it open by first UI football game
CORALVILLE — The eastbound ramp to Interstate 80 from Coralville’s First Avenue will be opening earlier than scheduled, possibly by July 3.
“The general goal is to just open up as much of that lane capacity before the first home football game as we can,” Coralville City Engineer Scott Larson said of the Aug. 31 home opener against Illinois State.
“We are very, very confident — as is the contractor and the Iowa DOT — that we will be all lanes open before the end of this construction season for sure,”
The new diverging diamond intersection will be the fourth in Iowa. The new interchange at Interstates 80 and 380 in Coralville is a diverging diamond.
Other diverging diamond design interchanges are planned at Wright Brothers Boulevard and I-380, east of The Eastern Iowa Airport in Cedar Rapids, and at the Boyson Road interchange with I-380 in Hiawatha.
The nation’s first diverging diamond interchange was built in 2009 in Springfield, Mo., with more than 150 now operating across the United States.
The bike and pedestrian trail that is part of the First Avenue project in Coralville — from East Ninth Street to the north side of the interchange — is open and includes three tunnels and a bridge over I-80.
Once Coralville’s First Avenue ramps are complete, there will be intermittent lane closures, according to Adrian Simonson, a resident construction engineer at the Iowa DOT Davenport Construction Office.
He urged drivers to remain vigilant when using the interchange. “Follow the traffic signs, pavement markings, pay attention to signals (and) pay attention to your surroundings,” he said.
“There’s a lot of interior work going on that is requiring certain lanes to remain closed,” Larson said. “So we’re not fully open as far as the maximum number of lanes that will be available on First Avenue, but that’s kind of a goal that we’re working toward as we move through the summer and into early fall.”
All of the intersection’s lanes should be completed by the end of the year, with “final touch-up work” — without any lane closures — scheduled for the spring of 2025, he said.
South of the interchange, the new Magellan Terminal driveway and the connection of Iowa River Landing Place to the Iowa River Landing will be open this summer or early fall.
Ultimately, Larson said, the interchange is a relatively new design that increases traffic flow and reduces the potential and severity of accidents.
“You like to say that safety is always No. 1,” Larson said. “One of the main concerns at this interchange, in particular, was just its capacity to handle peak traffic flows.”
Comments: (319) 265-6828; cleo.westin@thegazette.com
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