The long-running effort to create a new east-west thoroughfare across northern Iowa is marking another milestone. Shirley Phillips, president of the Highway 20 Corridor Association, says a new stretch of the four-lane road is under construction in northwest Iowa’s Woodbury County. “That would be a stretch that would be from three miles east of Moville to Correctionville and then through Correctionville,” Phillips says. “We hope to have the westbound two lanes from east of Moville to Minnesota Avenue completed by the end of 2016 and from Moville to east of Correctionville should all be finished by 2018.” Phillips says one piece of the puzzle is still going to be missing.

“The bad news is, the 30-point-five miles that are left between Highway 71 at Early and Correctionville are not in the program,” she says. By that, she means the state has no immediate plan to complete the project so the roadway runs all the way across Iowa four lanes. Completing the 30-mile stretch from Early to Correctionville is evidently not on the drawing board and there is no timetable for it.

“With a gap that small to complete the additional four-lane east-west corridor across the state of Iowa, it would be crazy not to funnel some funding toward that project,” she says. “The Moville to Correctionville stretch is by far the most expensive and cumbersome portion of the highway to complete, so once that is finished, we would hope they would continue to push eastward from Correctionville.” The next meeting of the Highway 20 Corridor Association will be in Sioux City on July 11th.

(Radio Iowa)