Floyd interchange still on schedule in latest state plan

By Bob Steenson, bsteenson@charlescitypress.com

A new Avenue of the Saints interchange at Floyd continues to be listed in the latest Iowa Department of Transportation five-year plan.

The 2019-2023 plan, which was officially approved by the Iowa Transportation Commission this month, calls for work on the overpass to begin in 2021 with right-of-way acquisition, then the majority of construction in 2022 and some final landscaping work in 2023.

That’s essentially the same timetable as when the project was first introduced in last year’s Iowa DOT five-year plan, although the estimated dollar amounts for some of the parts of the project have changed.

Pete Hjelmstad, District 2 utility coordinator with the Iowa DOT, told the Press Thursday that being in the five-year plan and on the same timetable is significant.

“The fact that it’s included in there is good news,” he said.

“Everything is moving ahead as scheduled,” Hjelmstad said, adding that preliminary design work has already begun.

Total cost of the project is listed as $20.639 million. That consists of:

• $1 million for right of way purchase in 2011.
• $2.834 million for bridgework in 2022.
• $16.180 million for grading and paving in 2022.
• $64,000 for lighting in 2022.
• $125,000 for signage in 2022.
• $436,000 for erosion control in 2023.

The estimated cost for bridgework decreased from last year’s five-year plan, but the cost of grading and paving increased. The total estimated cost of the project jumped by more than $2.5 million from last year’s plan to the current schedule, from $18.045 million to $20.639 million.

Residents of Floyd and Floyd County have advocated for an overpass interchange on the Avenue of the Saints for years, as the current-at-grade intersections by Floyd have been the site of numerous accidents, including fatalities.

The death at the main intersection of 23-year-old college student and Charles City resident T.J. Houdek in July 2016 in a motorcycle versus semi accident, resulted in a petition drive asking the state for an overpass.

The Iowa DOT began holding public meetings in the fall of 2016 with potential plans for an interchange at the main U.S. 18 and U.S. 218 intersection by the truck stops. Other at-grade intersections with the Avenue of the Saints in Floyd will be closed.

The Floyd project is one of many that the Iowa DOT says is being made possible because of the 2015 state law that increased the state transportation fuel tax by 10 cents a gallon. Part of that law requires that all of the revenue from the tax increase be spent on road and bridge projects.

The five-year plan says the Iowa Transportation Commission remains committed to all of its large multi-year projects, and mentions the Floyd interchange by name, but it notes that a large portion of the state’s highway program funding comes from the federal government, and the current funding authorization is set to expire on Sept. 30, 2020.

Hjelmstad said changes in federal funding could still affect projects, even though the Floyd interchange is planned to be paid for with state gas tax funds.

State plans for the years after the current federal highway authorization funding expires assume funding levels will remain “more or less the same,” he said.

Hjelmstad said Foth Consulting, a Wisconsin design firm with offices in Des Moines and Cedar Rapids among other places, has begun the design work for the interchange.

“Everything is in preliminary design right now,” he said. “Once it gets through that it goes into final design. There’s many different steps yet to take, but it’s not sitting on a shelf, I can tell you that much.

“There are things happening and there are meetings happening and things are moving forward,” Hjelmstad said.