Floyd County approves five-year roads and bridges construction plans

By Bob Steenson, bsteenson@charlescitypress.com

Floyd County plans to spend a little over $23 million on bridges, roads and other infrastructure projects in the next five years, according to the plan approved by the Board of Supervisors this week.

New County engineer Adam Miller presented the plan, which must also be sent to the Iowa Department of Transportation.

All but $1.3 million of the projected funding will come from state and federal sources. The $1.3 million will come from county funds.

Other funding sources are SWAP funds, which exchange federal block grant funds for state primary road fund dollars on a dollar-for-dollar basis; farm-to-market funds, which use part of the state’s Road Use Tax Fund for construction and maintenance of farm-to-market roads;  and federal assistance (FA) funds, which come from federal programs such as the Highway Bridge Program and Surface Transportation Block Grants for bridge and road projects.

Several of the projects will be paid for through Floyd County’s $9 million share of a $25 million federal RAISE (Rebuilding American Infrastructure with Sustainability and Equity) grant the county received as part of an application with Bremer and Fayette counties.

All new bridges will be 30 feet wide and are required to maintain three feet of freeboard under the bridge during a 50-year flood event, Miller said.

He also said the county is looking to replace a number of old steel truss bridges “before the National Historical Society decides they want to make them historic bridges,” which would make replacing them “a lot more difficult.”

Miller went through all the proposed projects for the next five fiscal years with the supervisors. They are:

Fiscal Year 2025-26:

• Resurfacing 5 miles of County Road T47 (the Packard blacktop) from Highway 14 south 6.5 miles to B60 – $1.5 million in Farm to Market funds.
• Replace bridge over Flood Creek, south of Rudd on 170th Street with a new slab bridge – $1.1 million in FA funds.

Fiscal Year 2026-27:

• Biennial pavement marking program – $170,000 in Farm to Market funds.
• Replace box culvert bridge on Walnut Avenue southeast of Charles City over an unnamed creek – $195,000 in Farm to Market funds.
• Replace bridge on March Avenue northwest of Charles City with new slab bridge – $248,000 in FA funds (RAISE grant).
• Replace bridge on Underwood Avenue over the Little Cedar River with new pre-stressed concrete beam bridge – $3.206 million in FA funds (RAISE grant).
• Replace bridge over the Little Cedar River on 155th Street – $2.76 million in FA funds (RAISE grant).

Fiscal Year 2027-28:

• Resurface Underwood Avenue (County Road T66) 4.9 miles from Highway 18 to County Road T64 – $3.2 million in Farm to Market funds.
• Replace bridge on 230th Street southwest of Charles City over an unnamed creek – $390,000 in FA funds (RAISE grant).
• Bridge replacement on Old Highway Road over a creek; replace with box culvert – $528,000 in FA funds (RAISE grant).
• Replace Orchard Bridge on County Road T42 over the Cedar River with prestressed precast beam bridge – $3.034 million in FA funds (RAISE grant).

Fiscal Year 2028-29:

• Biennial pavement marking program – $170,000 in Farm to Market funds.
• Resurface County Road T64 from Shadow Avenue east 2 miles to Underwood Avenue then 5.5 miles north to the Mitchell County Line – $2.3 million in Farm to Market funds.
• Replace bridge east of Rockford on County Road B45 – $800,000 ($640,000 in FA funds and $160,000 in SWAP funds).
• Bridge replacement on 200th Street over the Winnebago River near Rudd with prestressed concrete beam bridge – $1.9 million local funding.

Fiscal Year 2029-30:

• Bridge replacement on County Road B30 over a drainage ditch west of Rudd – $200,000 ($160,000 FA and $40,000 SWAP).
• Resurface Cedar View Drive from Gilbert Street northwest 1 mile to U.S. 27 – $250,000 local funds.
• Resurface Rotary Park Road from County Road T64 1.3 miles northwest – $325,000 local funds.
• Resurface Wedgewood Estates 0.3 miles from County Road T66 west – $100,000 local funds.
• Seal coat Timber Avenue/180th Street from Charles City city limits 2.5 miles to County Road T66 – $625,000 local funds.

Miller said he put several resurfacing projects in the 2030 budget to be done with local funds.

“I’m hoping that as we get some extra funding here and there that I can do one or two of these at a time,” he said, adding that he put them in the 2030 fiscal year to get them into the five-year program, because sometimes it’s easier to move projects around that are already in the program than to try to add additional projects.

“Projects can move forward and backwards as the years go on,” said the former Kossuth County assistant engineer who took over the Floyd County county engineer job March 1.

“I’ve worked with five-year programs where we’ve had projects in five-year programs for 20 years. They’ve always just stayed around that four- or five-year mark. We recognize that it needs to be done but we just don’t have the funds to do it,” he said.