Minimum maintenance road.

Flooding causes standing water. Standing water causes mosquitoes and other insects. A fresh source of food means the dragonflies grow fat and happy. This one was about three inches long, with a five inch wingspan.

We’ve got ourselves a good old fashioned lightning storm. Western Kansas.

We start with another train – no airplane fuselages this time, though.

The gantry tells the tale. At one point, this road was US-75, and the rightmost (missing) set of signs indicated that. Then, US-75 was moved onto the I-29 freeway, so they changed the gantry to indicate that – and added the new county route designation.

when they moved US-75 well into Nebraska, they took off the trailblazer, but oddly did not move the county signs to the main gantry. too much effort, apparently.

Green grass and high tides.

This old yellow stop sign might actually still be in service… it all depends on whether the dirt path it serves is a public road, or just someone’s driveway.

Old 75 intersects current 30. The sign dates to 1994, as evidenced by the sticker on the back, which implies that 75 was moved across the river after that time.

Iowa is the only state I know which uses outline shields for interstates so regularly.

One in infrared, for variety’s sake. Old US-30/75; the Lincoln Highway approaching Omaha.

Nebraska City is about the last place in the state where you will find these “BUSINESS”-tagged state route shields. The US routes are in a lot of places. The earliest ones date back to 1984, when the bypass was built.

The newer sign assemblies are divided into multiple pieces, like this one.

The view from the highway 2 bridge across the Missouri river between Iowa and Nebraska. Why is the water brown? A sewage treatment plant upstream was flooded. Ick.

The levee is holding … for now.

There’s an on-ramp in here somewhere.

You can see the first Iowa state highway 2 marker in the distance … not long before the road sinks.

The water isn’t usually this high. Or, this brown.

Instant business route marker… just add stencil.

Somewhere in Nebraska, this flower blooms.

We’re not just looking for pretty flowers. We are driving this road because it is an old alignment of Nebraska state highway 4. It got renumbered to US-136 sometime in 1951. The green post may very well have once held a NE-4 shield.

This might be the oldest sign we see in Nebraska. The black going all the way to the outside border, the yellow faded to white – this identifies the sign as mid-1950s. It’s on the same old alignment of NE-4/US-136.

Indeed, this sign was once yellow.

We are now in Kansas, where we find this white guide sign on an old US-24 alignment.

Cloud County indeed.

This storm cloud is centered over Salina, Kansas, over 75 miles away.

A railroad runs parallel to US-24. We catch this train just around sunset.

Blue skies and storm clouds.

The storm approaches. This is about a one-minute exposure, with the clouds being illuminated by successive lightning strikes.

We interrupt this meteorological quest to bring you a picture of an old brown 16″ county route marker. They’re getting quite hard to find in Kansas.

It’s electric.

Strike after strike after strike. I combined about seven consecutive exposures here.

The ranch fence gets one in the teeth.

One last lightning strike.

And now for something completely different. This might be the last cutout US route marker in Kansas. Apparently, the US-36 shields in St. Francis are gone, so this is it.

Next morning. As dawn breaks, we are in Colorado. Along the side of US-160 is this abandoned house.

Our first photo from New Mexico. It appears to be a large beast of some kind, possibly carnivorous.

Can a Prius go 100mph? Well, down a road I’ve driven far too many times… yes!

Oh dear, US-64 got demoted.

and that’s where we leave off for now!

Endless fields of yellow flowers are the most prominent feature of the eastern Montana landscape. All the way across the state on US-212, from I-90 eastward, featured miles upon miles of bright colors.

The Milky Way. A 90 second exposure.

Very early dawn in Nebraska. Above this house: a noctilucent cloud – one of the rarest kinds to see!

Slightly later dawn.

Nothing to see here, just a train carrying airplane fuselages.

A state-named I-90 sign which I managed to miss during my previous trip through here, in December, 2007. It’s in Laurel, about two blocks off the main drag.

Not particularly old signs, but definitely an old gantry. At one point, this mentioned US-10 for sure.

I do not know why this Montana 3 sign has an extra thick border. Also, why it does not point to 3 in any reasonably direct manner. It instead points to US-87. Since US-87 and MT-3 both connect Billings to Great Falls, it may very well be the cast that what is currently 87 was once 3.

Typical eastern Montana grasslands scene.

Close-up of the typical eastern Montana grasslands scene.

A different style of flower.

A strangely compelling era of Montana history comes to an end. I remember seeing, in 2005, an older-style US-47 shield here, and then was quite shocked when, in December 2007, I noted that they had replaced it with a shiny new … US-47 marker.

now, finally, state route 47 is correctly marked heading out of Hardin. a small part of us has died.

Infinite regression of purple flowers.

absurdly large dandelion. Seriously, it was about 4 inches in diameter.

This is the only example we found of a signed Indian Route. It uses the same route marker as the Montana state secondary highways – but a completely different range of numbers. The secondaries start around 270 or so.

US-212 in eastern Montana is the Warrior Trail.

This sign is neither embossed steel, nor cast iron. It is wood – and the parts not protected by black paint have weathered away over the last, oh let’s say 40 years.

in any case, the state of Montana wants you to know that if you want some heaps of dirt, you’ll just have to get your own.

We are now in Belle Fourche, South Dakota. And no – despite being 16×16 inches – these are not direct replacements for 16″ cutout US route markers. They’re just … oddly lame.

An original 1958-specification Business Loop 90 marker. It may very well be the only one in South Dakota.

An abysmally bad photo of the sunset. I took this one while discovering that a particular set of ramps on I-90 didn’t have anything to the north but the on- and off-ramps – so I was hastily beating a U-turn (probably quite illegally) before the cavalry came.

Lots of old signs to be found in the Black Hills. I need to return here sometime during the day. Perhaps in early October, to take photos of the leaves changing, and various other general-interest topics.

An oddly shaped 385.

A classic one, unfortunately hidden behind a pair of street blades. I’ll bet that, if I told you that it was in the town of Lead, that you could find exactly where.

Whoops, that’s supposed to be state route 87.

Nebraska. We drove through the night and we’re in about the middle of the state by dawn.

Foggy morning.

Another sunrise photo, through the fog and the trees.

Alas, not the original white town boundary sign.

An older Junction assembly. One can tell its age by the smaller numbers in the route markers – and, oh yeah, the general decrepitude.

What strange installations lurk in the fog?

Agricultural vehicle is agricultural.

An older faded sign.

There isn’t much button copy left in Nebraska. Most of it is here on the 129 freeway.

US-75 was moved from Iowa into Nebraska in the mid-1990s. Therefore, some signs needed to get patched.

One last set of flowers. This is in Iowa – where we will leave off for now. Next up: Missouri River flooding in Iowa, lightning storms in Kansas!

First thing in the morning. US highway 30 eastbound in western Nebraska. We follow 30 for a while because it’s a mile or two away from I-80 and more likely to have old signs. It may or may not be rather cold.

Catch of the day! Over and over again, I scoured downtown Omaha for old interstate highway markers, and by the third time, I finally found one. This one was installed in 1963 or so, whenever I-480 was built through here along old US-75.

The shield was in an industrial area just south of US-275, and it was replaced in April, 2009. There is one 1957-spec interstate shield left in Nebraska that anyone knows about. It is an I-80.

The blue US-77 bridge in Sioux City. South Dakota is the far side, and Nebraska is where I’m taking the picture from.

Several of these survive in Gothenburg. Also: ice does very interesting things under flash!

Nice pair of embossed signs, showing the difference between old and new fonts.

Rain or shine, the trains will run on time. (This principle apparently extends to snow and ice, too.)

A switch engine.

Red barns and white frosted trees.

This can’t possibly be a standard sign – but it’s definitely old. Somewhere in Omaha.

What’s missing here? Yep, just a block down from that I-480 shield. The odd thing is, that one is at eye level and this one was about 20 feet in the air – and this one is the one that got yanked first?

The I-129 freeway. It’s about a two mile long spur of I-29 coming from Iowa… and it contains about half of the button copy left in the entire state of Nebraska.

The one state-named I-129 shield. Yep, it’s in Iowa. Because Iowa is good about that sort of thing. The ones in Nebraska are all gone … there’s one sitting on my floor at this very moment, in fact!

The Sioux City airport beacon in the fog.

Delivery van of the damned. The strange, strange skies are the result of fog and smoke from an industrial area, all under municipal lightning.

Not a particularly old sign, but gotta love the bizarro lighting.

The best part of this scene is that the little banner on the more distant light post says “right at home”.

A tall light fixture in swirling fog.

And a yellow stop sign! The “seat belt fastened?” variety is popular in the parking lots of a certain midwest and mountain state telecommunications company. I know of some still extant in Wyoming, Colorado, and this one in Iowa.

Another view of the blue bridge.

And one with some trees.

South Dakota likes its metric speed limit signs.

Residential neighborhood of the damned? I was just going for the embossed speed limit sign and upon review, the houses behind it look perfect for Halloween.

Somewhere on South Dakota state highway 46. I don’t remember which town’s main drag we are approaching.

Entering Sioux Falls, South Dakota on I-29.

Specialization is for insects.

South Dakota interstate shields get more and more common as one heads westward in the state. This is about as far east as you can get – there’s some 229s in Sioux City at one intersection.

The end of interstate 229. No, really – it turns into a dirt road north of I-90.

Haunted house at the end of I-229.

Where I-229 starts being paved and splits into four lanes, intersecting I-90. Also: spot the sign that has been installed upside-down.

Next up … more old signs in South Dakota, and some more traditional scenery, courtesy of the Badlands and the Black Hills before we head back into Wyoming and Colorado and attempt to cross the Rockies again.

I headed south to visit my friend Brian, then was about to turn back west to take photos of the Rockies… before noting that a Snowstorm of Usual Occurrence was blowing through and it would be at least two days before the roads were somewhat less than total failure. Thus, it became a frolic through the farmlands for a few days.

A wintry evening in Colorado.

Foggy night in farmland Kansas.

Hey look, an old sign. I happened upon this one in the middle of the night, and got the long-exposure shot out in the middle of the frosted fields.

Big green Sinclair dinosaur. Somewhere in Wyoming – wherever I spent the night, plus another sixty miles or so south on I-25.

Winter trees in Wyoming.

Interstate 25, plowed adequately.

Old signs. Wyoming does a good job of adhering to early standards for interstate shields, but their sign replacement policy is frequent and brutal – so this gantry from 1990 counts as old.

Somewhere in Denver, near to where Brian lives, some excellent clouds appeared.

Clouds straight overhead.

Iridescent clouds over US-36. Yes, if the ice crystals line up just right, they really do glow in rainbow colors like that! I barely got this photo while navigating the curves of the road – ten seconds later, the effect was gone.

Just past dusk. Here is where I realize there is a storm to the west, and crossing the Rockies would be a dubious proposition. Time to head east.

Someone’s tree, illuminated blue well after dusk.

A popular color.

Wreath and lamp post. I don’t remember which town on US-24 in eastern Colorado this is, but I think this photo randomly came out well.

There something wrong is the order with words of the sign this on.

In Kansas now. We see here the tree types of highway markers that Kansas uses – including both their regular (left) and slightly odd (right) takes on interstate shields.

Moon halos in the fog.

They are not particularly old, but those are indeed black guide signs for US-24 and K-25 in Colby.

Alas, I completely biffed this photo of what might have been the last photo of a Business Loop shield in Kansas. 1958 spec, no less. Why did I do so badly on this shot? Because the sheriff was busy escorting me out of town, having caught scent of me doing far too many U-turns near the black guide signs.

Not really. US-40 continues all the way to Park City, Utah. It just happens to meet up with I-70 here and is only sporadically signed until just west of Denver. But it hasn’t ended.

This speed limit sign has seen better days: like, when all of its friends and neighbors were embossed too.

A small town in Nebraska. We just crossed over on US-83 from Kansas.

Some trees. The background is illuminated by sodium streetlights in the fog.

And we’ve reached the freeway.

This is where we leave off, as we spend the next day scouring interstate 80 in Nebraska for old signs.

As I wrote about in a previous post, NDOR (Nebraska Department of Roads) is indeed upgrading all of U.S. 275 into a freeway from Fremont southeast to West Dodge Road (Nebraska Link 28B) at west Omaha. Progress is much further along than I anticipated as interchanges are already open at Blondo Street and Military Avenue, and work is partially complete at the east junction with U.S. 30 and U.S. 30 Business. Additional work is underway involving what I believe to be constructing a bridge over Luther Road and the parallel BNSF Railroad, and building a diamond interchange with Morningside Road within the Fremont vicinity. Work is expected to be completed on the Morningside Road and U.S. 30 interchanges by Fall 2007. I am unsure about the Luther Road grade separation.

West Dodge Road’s connection between U.S. 275 (240th Street) and U.S. 6 & Nebraska 31 (204th Street) is indeed signed as solely Nebraska Link 28B. Interchanges along the highway involve 228th Street (diamond) and Skyline Drive (partial-cloverleaf).

U.S. 275 overtakes the freeway from West Dodge Road (Nebraska Link 28B) via a pair of partial “Y” interchanges. West Dodge Road continues west into new suburban areas west of 240th Street. U.S. 275 continues north to the Blondo Street exit and Waterloo.

Nebraska 64 merges onto U.S. 275 west from Maple Road at Waterloo via a partial “Y” interchange. The pair continue northwest to Meigs Street (diamond interchange) and Valley before splitting at the 276th Street diamond interchange. Nebraska 64 travels southward into Valley and west to U.S. 77 near Wahoo.

U.S. 275 meets Nebraska 36 at a diamond interchange near the Douglas/Dodge County line and curves north from there to Military Avenue and junction U.S. 30 & 30 Business east of Fremont. A new bridge is nearing completion over U.S. 275 to go along with ramp grading well underway.

U.S. 275 leaves U.S. 30 westbound at the partial-cloverleaf interchange with U.S. 77 north of Fremont. U.S. 77 & 275 travel north nine miles to Winslow; U.S. 30 continues along the Fremont bypass as an expressway with at-grade intersections to its merge with U.S. 30 Business at 23rd Street.

Furthermore, NDOR may build a southeast bypass of Fremont for U.S. 77, joining the federal highway with the U.S. 275 freeway at the Morningside Road diamond interchange. Called the Fremont Southeast Beltway, the at-grade facility will include five intersections. Work may begin in 2014 and preliminary costs range up to $20 million.

As for the end of my trip, severe thunderstorms in the Dallas-Fort Worth area curtailed all flights to and from DFW International Airport that night. Therefore myself and several others ended up spending another night in the Omaha area until flights resumed in the morning…

As written about in a previous post, the West Dodge Road freeway is now wholly complete between U.S. 275 and Interstate 680. The final portion of this project are the twin viaducts carrying U.S. 6 high above the original West Dodge Road between 132nd Street and Interstate 680. The elevated roadways are dubbed the U.S. 6 Express Lanes while the original West Dodge Road continues below as an at-grade facility, serving movements to 120th Street, 114th Street, and the Old Mill area.

U.S. 6 splits with West Dodge Road for a pair of six-lane viaducts west of the 120th Street intersection. Before construction of the elevated roadways, West Dodge Road met 120th Street at a diamond interchange. That interchange was removed and replaced with an at-grade intersection.

Soaring above West Dodge Road within the vicinity of Old Mill. A folded-diamond interchange remains in use between the original West Dodge Road below and 108th Street. U.S. 6 travels uninterrupted above into the directional-cloverleaf interchange with Interstate 680. U.S. 6 transitions back into a surface arterial east of the Westroads Mall interchange.

Interstate 29 and 680 join for ten miles between Crescent and Loveland in western Iowa. Interstate 680 provides a more direct route to north Omaha from Iowa and points east. The route was originally planned as Interstate 280 and 80N. Since there was already an Interstate 280 at Quad Cities, Interstate 280 later became Interstate 680. Exit 72 serves a decommissioned Iowa state highway. The state of Iowa decommissioned a series of state highways in 2003. For the list, see Jason Hancock’s Iowa Highways Page.

All signs along Interstate 29 northbound still display “I-129″ in text at the Exit 144 interchange with Interstate 129, U.S. 20, and U.S. 75. Interstate 129 forms a short Interstate highway leading west from I-29 to the U.S. 75 merge with U.S. 77 in South Sioux City, Nebraska. Signs along I-29 southbound properly display Interstate 129 shields. The only other instance that we can recollect where and Interstate is written out in text was at the Interstate 26 eastbound split with Interstate 126 in Columbia, South Carolina.

U.S. 75 southbound leaves its original alignment at Sioux City for a freeway bypass to the east and south. Pictured here is the southbound beginning of the freeway and split with U.S. 75 Business at Exit 99. Despite what may just be rumors of a Sioux City beltway (also referred to in the roadgeek circles as Interstate 429), no provisions could be found at the north end of the U.S. 75 freeway for a westward extension to Interstate 29 in South Dakota. Instead U.S. 75, and later U.S. 20, travel a rural to suburban freeway over rolling hills east of the city, meeting Interstate 29 at Interstate 129 opposite the Missouri River. U.S. 20 follows the freeway and overtakes the exit numbering convention from Gordon Drive (Exit 4) southwest to Nebraska.

Further north at Sioux Falls, South Dakota, Interstates 29 and 90 converge with Interstate 229 providing an urban loop east of downtown. All three freeways have Business routes into the urban core, but what is different about these than others, is that they are mostly are signed as “Downtown Loop” and “Downtown Spur”. Pictured here is the southbound beginning of Downtown Spur I-90 and its cosigning with South Dakota 115. The Business route follows Cliff Avenue southward from Interstate 90 Exit 399 to 10th Street (Downtown Loop I-229 & South Dakota 42).

Interstate 229 drops below grade on the approach to Exit 6 with Business Spur I-229 & South Dakota 42. The loop serves interests to downtown from its business loop and commuting interests to Interstate 29 and 90. South Dakota DOT is studying the concept of constructing a second loop for the Sioux Falls area further east and south than Interstate 229. Dubbed South Dakota 100 or the Sioux Falls Eastside Corridor, the expressway would travel east from Interstate 29 near Tea (Exit 73), curve northeast to South Dakota 11 at 57th Street, and than northward to Interstate 90 at Exit 402. The project web site touts the road as a limited access highway, but in fact only two of the intersections are planned as full interchanges along the highway. A SPUI is planned at the Benson Road extension south of Interstate 90, and SPUI’s may or may not be used at both Interstate 90 and 57th Street. If a SPUI is not built at 57th Street, than a folded-diamond interchange will be used instead.

Hitting a few towns along the way such as Worthington, Jackson, and Fairmont , Interstate 90 travels through farm country throughout southwest Minnesota. The first of three Minnesota Business Loops departs Interstate 90 at Worthington. Following Nobles County 25 (Diagonal Road), Business Loop I-90 travels south into town between Exits 42 and 45, roughly following the original routing of U.S. 16. Minnesota sometimes signs their county highways with white boxes and black text and other times with purple pentagons with white text. A few exceptions occur in the Minneapolis area where standard pentagons with yellow text are used. North Dakota borrows the white box concept along exit signs on Interstate 29 as well.

Older signs still grace the sign bridges along Interstate 90 at Interstate 35 near Albert Lea. The two interstates join one another at a full-cloverleaf northeast of town. A short distance to the south are the ends of U.S. 65 and U.S. 69 at Albert Lea. The otherwise rural junction of the freeways lies 80 miles south of the Twin Cities metro area, an area I’ll cover extensively in the next series of posts.

Before construction, West Dodge Road existed as a six-lane expressway complete with east and westbound frontage roads. Interchanges included a full diamond at 120th Street and a folded-diamond interchange at 108th Street. The intersection with 114th Street was signalized among others.

The elevated express lanes will bypass 114th and 120th Streets to provide a seamless connection with the U.S. 6 freeway west of 132nd Street. Original West Dodge Road will remain in use for local traffic; frontage roads will be relocated to accommodate the new elevated structures and the 120th Street diamond interchange will be dismantled and replaced with a signalized intersection.

Ramps to the express lanes will tie into West Dodge Road west of 120th Street and east of 108th Street. The elevated lanes will descends west of 120th Street onto the preexisting freeway. Widening of that freeway coincides with the project to bring U.S. 6 up to nine overall lanes west to the 132nd Street interchange.

Work commenced in 2003 on the $100 million project that is expected to be completed this year, a full year ahead of schedule. The westbound elevated lanes opened to traffic on July 27, 2006; eastbound lanes opened to drivers on October 13, 2006. Both viaducts were originally slated for completion by August of 2007. Landscaping and other work involving completion the original West Dodge Road westbound lanes and the 114th Street intersection are all that remains on the 5-year project.

Further west, interchanges were constructed along U.S. 6 between 2005 and 2006 to bring the entire stretch of West Dodge Road between Interstate 680 and U.S. 275 up to freeway standards. Included is work involving the upgrading of U.S. 275 (240th Street) and West Dodge Road’s (Nebraska Link 28B) intersection into a full interchange.

West Dodge Road constitutes the easternmost segment of an overall freeway in the works between Interstate 680 and Omaha with Fremont to the northwest. U.S. 275 continues the limited access highway northward from Nebraska Line 28B (West Dodge Road west of U.S. 6 & Nebraska 31 (204th Street) northwest to its merge with Nebraska 64 (Maple Road). The pair continue northwest to Valley.

Various segments of the alignment between Waterloo, Valley, and Fremont exist as a freeway or a freeway in waiting. When all is said and done, the freeway will stretch east from U.S. 30 and 77 at Fremont southeast along U.S. 275 to West Dodge Road and Interstate 680.

U.S. 6 leaves West Dodge Road for 204th Street with Nebraska 31 south. The two highways venture south to Gretna. Nebraska Link 28B continues West Dodge Road to junction U.S. 275 (240th Street). Photo taken 09/05/05.

Returning eastward toward Elkhorn, U.S. 6 (West Dodge Road) nears the interchange with 180th Street, seen here under construction on September 5, 2005. The split intersection with 192nd Street was also upgraded to an interchange.

U.S. 6 sees SPUIS with 168th, 158th, and 144th Streets before the diamond interchange with 132nd Street. The U.S. 6 freeway transitioned into the West Dodge Street arterial/expressway east of here originally. With completion of the new elevated lanes, U.S. 6 carries four eastbound and five westbound lanes between 132nd Street and the ramps to the viaduct. Photo taken 09/05/05.

Passing through the original 120th Street diamond interchange on West Dodge Road eastbound. Work was well underway on completion of the elevated lanes at the time of this photograph. The 120th Street overpass and diamond interchange were removed in 2006 due to the freeway project and replaced with a signalized intersection. Photo taken 09/05/05.

Descending toward the busy 114th Street intersection on West Dodge Road eastbound with construction well underway. Drivers faced a series of signals from 114th Street east to Interstate 680. Now through traffic may bypass the at-grade intersections above. Photo taken 09/05/05.

U.S. 6′s elevated lanes tie directly into the directional-cloverleaf interchange with Interstate 680. West Dodge Road transitions into a surface arterial east of the ramps to Regency Parkway and Westroads Mall en route toward downtown Omaha. Interstate 680 provides a both a commuter route and a bypass of downtown for through traffic. The junction between U.S. 6 (West Dodge Road) and Interstate 680 was upgraded from a full-cloverleaf interchange by 2005. Photo taken 09/05/05.

Look for updated photos on AARoads of the West Dodge Road elevated lanes after April 2007.

Sources:

1. Nebraska Department of Roads-West Dodge Project
2. http://www.dor.state.ne.us/docs/metro2006.pdf
3. “Motorists expect daily drives to be quicker with new route.” Omaha World-Herald, July 28, 2006.
4. 4 – “Dodge Traffic Expected to Pick Up With Expressway Open.” Omaha World-Herald, October 15, 2006.