The Iowa Highways Photo Gallery

Iowa City and vicinity

Iowa City
	One of many "Share the Road" signs in Iowa City. These signs were put up in early 1997 to encourage drivers to share the roads with bicycles.
	Another common sight on residential streets in Iowa City (as well as Des Moines, North Liberty, Muscatine, and a few other cities) are these yellow signs reminding drivers that 25 MPH is the speed limit.
	In 1985 the City Council of Iowa City declared the city a nuclear free zone; signs noting this fact, such as this one on Dubuque Street, are usually found near city limits.
	A Herbert Hoover Highway marker, in downtown Iowa City (across from the Pappajohn Business Administration Building). This historic route runs eastward past West Branch, Hoover's home town, and ends at US 30 in Lowden.
	Here are some fluorescent yellow school signs, found on Benton Street. These signs have gradually become the standard for school zones in Iowa, and Iowa City was one of the first cities to put them up.
	Iowa City's own "truck-eating bridge" (which has an even lower clearance that the bridge in Davenport), a railroad overpass over Iowa Avenue just east of the river. Note the chains hanging from the overhead pole, placed as a warning device to warn trucks that they are too high for the bridge. This is near the English-Philosophy Building.
	This traffic circle is at the intersection of College and Summit Streets (looking eastward); there is also one a block to the north at Washington and Summit.
	This was the only sign (a street sign put up by the city of Iowa City) that the segment of old US 218 between the IA 1/US 6 split and the present US 218 was the "secret" IA 921. (Photos of its unsigned ends can be found here.) After IA 921 was decommissioned on July 1, 2003, the signs were changed to read "OLD HIGHWAY 218."
	The only time that IA 923, another former US 218 segment, was ever signed was during the summer of 2003 — just before its July 1 decommissioning — as detours for the road were placed while the road was closed between Iowa City and Hills for bridge repair work. After July 1, as several readers pointed out, the assemblies were changed to read "DETOUR FORMER IA 923," but once construction was finished, those signs were taken down.
	In the fall of 2002, "countdown" pedestrian signals came to Iowa City with the opening of a sidewalk/bike trail along US 6. The walk/don't walk signal is on top; as the "don't walk" signal flashes, the timer on the bottom counts down from 12 seconds to zero, when the flashing stops. This light is on eastbound US 6 at Boyrum Street. Other cities have since installed "countdown" signals at pedestrian crossings.
	"Doghouse"-style traffic signals are more common in Iowa City than they are in the rest of the state. The intersection of 1st and Muscatine Avenues (looking northward in this photo) has two such signals on the same pole — one for the left-turn lane and one for the right-turn lane.
	No, this is not I-80 — this sign is on Scott Boulevard (on the east edge of Iowa City) at the intersection with Muscatine Avenue. There really should be a "TO" trailblazer above the I-80 shield here.
	This US 6 trailblazer has a "TO" sign, but it also has a US 6 shield with a much larger-than-normal digit. There is one at the Scott Boulevard/Muscatine Avenue intersection south of the I-80 sign in the above photo, but this one was taken on westbound Rochester Avenue.
	These signs exist at the traffic signal on southbound Dodge Street at Scott Boulevard. Note that Dubuque Road (primarily used for ACT traffic) and Scott Boulevard each have their own left turn lanes.
	These IA 1 signs, at Burlington Street looking west at Governor Street (part of a one-way pair with Dodge Street east of downtown), also have larger-than-normal digits.
	This IA 1 trailblazer, which puts all the information in one sign rather than in a three-sign assembly, is heading northwest on Muscatine Avenue near the intersection with Burlington Street.
	Trailblazers for US 218, I-380, and I-80 are posted on the signal arm on westbound Melrose Avenue at Mormon Trek Boulevard. But note that the arrow below the US 218 shield is white on a black background.
	Not only are the US 218 and IA 27 markers at the Melrose Avenue exit side-by-side below one directional banner (like they are throughout Johnson and Washington counties), but the I-380 and I-80 shield are below the "TO" banner (which is white instead of the standard blue used with Interstate shields) as well.

Coralville
	This distance sign, on northbound 1st Avenue approaching I-80, is believed to be the westernmost sign to list Chicago as a destination. (Photographed by Jeff Morrison)
	Even when they're not playing well, thousands of Iowa Hawkeye football fans make the trip to Kinnick Stadium during their fall Saturday home games. That can cause traffic problems on I-80, and thus signs like these on the 12th Avenue overpass in Coralville are put up to separate I-80 thru traffic (left lane) from Kinnick-bound traffic (right lane). When football season is over, these wooden signs are folded in half until next season.
	You've got to go straight to access westbound and eastbound I-80 from here; this sign is at the Coral Ridge Mall entrance, looking northward along the former IA 965 near its south end. This interchange was reconstructed during 1997 and 1998 by adding two on-ramps to eliminate any left turns onto the I-80 on-ramps. The mall entrance is an extension of the off-ramp from eastbound I-80. While the I-80 west and I-80 east signs were originally side-by-side, I-380 was added to the assembly by 2006.
	The old Y-intersection of 1st Avenue and Holiday Road was reconstructed in the summer of 2002; it was transformed into a roundabout intersection that opened in September 2002. This advance sign which diagrams the intersection is on northbound 1st Avenue just north of I-80.
	A view of the roundabout, looking north.

The I-80/I-380/US 218 interchange
	The interchange of US 218 and I-80 — which is now split between the cities of Tiffin and Coralville thanks to recent annexations — also marks the beginning of I-380. Note how four of Iowa's five largest cities are listed as control cities on these signs. (Sioux City is the only one of the five not on here — and none of these routes even come close to Sioux City!)
	This is the same interchange, approaching I-80 from the north. One thing to note here is that the last exits for I-380 are labeled as "Exit 0." Also, the control city for eastbound I-80 is Iowa City instead of Davenport (even though you can also reach Iowa City by going straight on US 218.)
	This 3-mile advance sign for the I-380 interchange on eastbound I-80 was put up sometime in 2006. (The previous sign was similar to the 2-mile advance sign on westbound I-80 below.)
	The first photo in this series shows what the signs on eastbound I-80 at the off-ramp to northbound I-380 looked like in February 2000. Note the different arrow for the sharp cloverleaf loop ramp. The second photo, from December 2003, shows what the signs looked like after the decommissioning of IA 965 and the designation of IA 27. Finally, in late 2006, the sign on the right was replaced by an entirely new sign in the Clearview font as the third photo, from June 2007, shows.
	This is an advance sign for the I-380/US 218/IA 27 interchange on westbound I-80. It wasn't wide enough to replace the two large markers that had been on there with three after IA 27 was designated, so they had to be replaced by three small ones — creating a lot of green space as a result.
	This sign bridge was put up in November 2003 after work to widen I-80 over Coral Ridge Avenue was completed. The sign on the right originally had a destination of Cedar "Radids" — the "p" was placed upside down — when it was put up. After KCRG-TV pointed out the error, the DOT promptly fixed it. However, the signs say both exit ramps are one mile away, even though the ramp to US 218/IA 27 south is really 1¼ miles away.
	Further west, the sign on the left was able to accommodate two regular-sized markers, but the sign on the right couldn't despite the green space. A yellow "EXIT ONLY" panel was later added to the sign on the right, but...
	...the entire sign bridge was replaced with new signs — without retrofitted markers — in late 2003.
	A trailblazer for I-380 and US 218 from US 6 in Coralville, which does not directly intersect the freeway (or I-80 for that matter).

North Liberty
	This sign is at the intersection of Dubuque Street (County Road W66) and Penn Avenue (County Road F28) in North Liberty. This erroneous sign was put up by either Johnson County or the city of North Liberty; unfortunately, US 380 is in New Mexico and Texas.
	Although IA 965 (a former segment of US 218) was signed like most other state highways, this sign in North Liberty was an exception with white text on a green square background. This was because the city of North Liberty took over its share of the highway in 1994. There used to be four of these signs, but three of them were gone as of December 2002.
	These street signs on signal poles may have replaced some of the green square signs as a way to identify IA 965 after three signals along the road were activated in the fall of 2000. IA 965 has no street name in North Liberty, even after its decommissioning.
	Some county roads in Iowa are noted with the pentagonal route markers, while others (especially on I-80) aren't noted at all. This 1998 photo of a sign on northbound I-380 showed how county roads were originally noted on freeway signs: they were spelled out in text. The exit tab became right-aligned a year after this was photographed, but by the end of 2005, this sign was replaced with a new sign with a County Road F28 marker.
	While the F28 signs have been replaced, this sign on northbound I-380 at County Road F12 was still standing as of mid-2008.

Other Johnson County sights
	Just west of the I-80/380 interchange is the exit leading to Tiffin. In this case, the exit sign is narrower than the tab.
	This photo from June 1998 showed all 0.2 miles of IA 405, which ran from the north city limits of Lone Tree in southeast Johnson County to IA 22 (the intersection is in the background behind the two "STOP AHEAD" signs). Often on rural roads, Iowa puts "STOP AHEAD" signs on both sides of the road before an intersection. More photos of what was Iowa's shortest signed highway before its July 1, 2003, decommissioning are available on Jeff Morrison's IA 405 terminus photo page.
	I noticed this street name on a map one day and decided that I had to take a photo of the sign. It is a dead-end gravel road northwest of Hills.
	The warning sign (top) is on old US 218 near Hills, noting that a one-lane bridge is coming up. This bridge used to be controlled by stoplights (bottom) indicating which direction has the right-of-way...
	...but by mid-2001, the signals were replaced with stop signs. If that isn't enough, another one-lane bridge used to cross the English River south of the junction with IA 22 but was replaced in 2005.