Stretch of Tower Terrace may be defunded

CEDAR RAPIDS — After cost projections tripled, transportation planners are recommending defunding a stretch of what long has been envisioned as a major arterial street connecting Marion, Robins, Hiawatha and northern Cedar Rapids.

The estimate for constructing three-quarters of a mile of Tower Terrace Road from Robins Road to Council Street, which passes through Hiawatha, Cedar Rapids and Robins, jumped to $18.59 million, up from $5.7 million when first added to the 2008-2011 Corridor Metropolitan Planning Organization's three-year transportation improvement plan.

The new estimate factors in inflation and a railroad bridge, whereas the earlier plan included only an at-grade rail crossing.

'Pushing that much traffic through a busy rail line like that one is not ideal,' said Brandon Whyte, multimodal transportation planner for the Corridor MPO. 'It would require a lot of coordination with the railroad, and it would create safety issues.'

The Corridor MPO, a joint policy board for communities in Linn County, is recommending defunding $760,000 in federal money from the Surface Transportation Program. It was slated for the fiscal 2016 budget as part of the 2016-19 transportation plan.

The money is recommended to return to the available allocation pool.

At the same time, the Corridor MPO is recommending putting $760,000 to a different stretch of Tower Terrace Road. The recommendation is to put that amount in the fiscal 2017 budget for a $9.69 million project to connect Tower Terrace from C Avenue NE in Cedar Rapids to Alburnett Road in Marion, which is about 1.2 miles.

Tower Terrace Road was intended as a major arterial street in northern Cedar Rapids to alleviate congestion on Boyson Road and support development in the communities. It is supposed to stretch west past Interstate 380 to Highway 13 in Marion on the east side and someday have its own interchange of I-380.

However, Tower Terrace remains largely a fragmented road, and progress has been slow.

'There's so much of Tower Terrace that needs to happen, we have to take it where we can with the available budget,' Whyte said. 'That said, it's not the only road project on the list of road projects.'

The Dry Creek Trail Phase I also could be defunded $932,000 because of the construction of bike lanes on Boyson Road last year and expected additions in 2016 and 2017, according to the Corridor MPO.

Another defunding recommendation includes removing $108,000 from intersection improvements on Williams Boulevard at Wiley and Edgewood roads SW.

The recommendations remain open for public comment until the Corridor MPO meets at 1:30 p.m. March 17 at Jean Oxley Linn County Public Service Center, 935 Second St. SW.