An informational meeting is being held this afternoon about the next steps in a massive $480-million construction project in southwest Iowa.
Troy Jerman, an engineer with the Iowa Department of Transportation, says the next phase in rebuilding the Council Bluffs interchange at Interstate 29 and Highways 92 and 275 will be getting underway in about two months. “The majority of the traffic impacted is going to be the Highway 92-275 section,” Jerman says. “We’ll be going down to one lane in each direction across the interstate.”
The construction should be starting in late May and Jerman says by June 1st, traffic will be down to one lane on the highways. “Part of that we need to raise the interchange up, that’s a part of the rail relocation,” Jerman says. “We’re putting all of the railroads into a single corridor so that will open up the rest of the project to be constructed.”
Given the scale of the project and the many thousands of cars passing through that area daily, Jerman says great care has been taken to plan the best ways to proceed. “We’ve done about $120-million worth of work and now in the next three years, we’ll see about that much annually,” he says. “The project as a whole is pretty massive so we’ll be taking it in pieces.”
The informational meeting will be underway from 4 to 7 P.M. at the Lied Multipurpose Complex at the Iowa School for the Deaf in Council Bluffs.
By Karla James