Johnson County cities seek to coordinate better as north corridor continues to grow

IOWA CITY - Elected officials across Johnson County hope to take a proactive approach to future development north of Iowa City, where several local jurisdictions meet.

During Monday's joint entities meeting in Iowa City, officials with the county board of supervisors, city councils in Iowa City, Coralville, North Liberty and the Iowa City Community School District, discussed future residential growth and traffic on the length of N. Dubuque Street between Iowa City and North Liberty.

'When you have that kind of road system that connects with everybody, there probably has to be some sort of conversation between all of us,” Supervisor Terrence Neuzil said. 'If anything, let's start thinking about that, at some point our staff need to talk to your staffs.”

Several local officials said the addition of the $44 million, 1,000-student Liberty High School, planned for 78 acres of land at the intersection of Dubuque Street and North Liberty Road and set to be complete before the 2017 school year, will add traffic to the arterial roadway.

School board member Tuyet Baruah said the district anticipates the large majority of traffic leading to and from the high school to come from the north, where the majority of the school's students will live.

'I'm just wanting to make clear that the way that the district has done the boundaries for the new high school, we're hoping that it will not increase traffic (from the south),” she said.

The latest traffic model of the road by Metropolitan Planning Organization of Johnson County was completed in 2012 and doesn't include the high school, said Kent Ralston, MPOJC director.

Ralston said there is an anticipated increase in traffic between North Liberty and Iowa City, but more so on a different street.

'I think there's no doubt there will be more traffic on N. Dubuque Street, however we see more traffic going onto North Liberty Road,” Ralston said.

Projected residential growth in the area, which could increase by as much as 3,000 to 5,000 homes in the next 5 to 15 years, will also increase traffic along the road, Neuzil said.

The section of N. Dubuque Street managed by the county is not on the county's Five Year Road Construction Plan and Neuzil added that the board tends to focus more on rural projects.

'Typically the board of supervisors doesn't like to invest a lot of money into roads that will be incorporated into cities,” he said.

The item is planned for further discussion at the MPOJC's September meeting, with the possibility of an updated traffic study.

Iowa City's Gateway Project, which will raise the street to mitigate flooding, is still planned to begin next summer and take two years to complete.