Homestead and harmony

MINGO — Larry Cleverley moved back to Iowa from New York City in 1996, bringing with him a newfound relationship with food. He returned to the Mingo farmstead his grandparents built in the 1928, and the place where he grew up.

He opened Cleverley Farms — an acreage which straddles the southern and northern edges of the US Highway 330/65 interchange in northwestern Jasper County. His property encompasses nearly 200 acres — some timber, some farm field. When Highway 330/65 was changed from two to four lanes in 2002 to address safety and to handle the increasing traffic, his property was pushed further apart.

“The DOT assured us the four-lanes would be a golden ticket to safety,” Cleverley said. “It became obvious to us when the four lane (expressway) opened, the IDOT was going to have to do something else. More people were driving the highway and more people were driving faster.”

Maps from the IDOT show how a planned diamond interchange would redirect traffic flow from US Highway 117 and County Highway F17 through Cleverley’s property to create entrance and exit ramps. The current F17 and Highway 117 crossing points would be closed, and motorists would use a proposed overpass to continue north on Highway 65 to Collins. The entrance and exit ramps and diamond shape dissect the edges of Cleverley’s property.

The IDOT will present the final interchange proposal — including routes and the areas of Cleverley’s land that will be effect — within 10 to 12 months. Cleverley is also concerned the smaller dissected portions of his land will be difficult to access with the size of farming equipment. He said he hopes the redesign won’t come to the IDOT’s use of eminent domain laws to acquire his farmland. The department will make Cleverley and other affected landowners a monetary offer once the design is finalized.

With a price tag of $14.5 million, construction of the diamond interchange is expected to begin in 2017.

An organic issue

Cleverley has become a staple at the downtown Des Moines Farmers Market since introducing a Cleverley Farms booth in 1997, selling nearly 50 varieties of vegetables. Cleverley helped bring farm-to-table culture to central Iowa, selling — among others edibles — lettuce, salad grains, potatoes, beets and garlic to both the public and local restaurants.

The proposed diamond interchange is slated to take at least 50 acres of his farm. But his business is built around the eight acres of USDA certified organic land, and he fears excavation of the soil could destroy what has been his livelihood for 18 years.

If construction moves forward on Cleverley’s land in 2017, the farmer would be 67 years old. The USDA has a three-year process for certifying farmland as suitable for growing organic produce. Cleverley fears his age will play a factor in his ability to restart his organic operation.

Iowa DOT District 1 Engineer Scott Dockstader said the diamond interchange will only create a 2-acre wide path through what appears to be the certified organic farmland in the IDOT’s aerial imagery. But the project will take at least 50 acres of Cleverley’s land, Dockstader said.

The interchange would also claim two homes on the acreage and several buildings. After looking at the plans, Cleverley believes the interchange will occupy closer to 90 acres of his property. One of the homes was hand-built by his grandparents 87 years ago. Cleverley said the historical value of the home is something no amount of compensation could replace.

“It doesn’t look like much on the outside, but the inside has oak hardwood floors without a knot in it,” he said. “All of the woodwork and door frames are made out of black walnut ripped from logs given to my grandparents from my great-grandparents.”

Public input/IDOT position

Evaluating traffic camera footage Monday of several nonfatal accidents in 2011, at the U.S. Highway 65/117 intersection, Dockstader said his department is charged with putting driver safety as the top priority in the design consideration.

“You can say user error but eventually you have to assist the drivers,” he said.

From 2009 to 2014, the IDOT presented nine alternatives to the duel-intersection expressway’s current configuration through a series of four public meetings in the city of Baxter. Ultimately, a J-turn and the diamond interchange proposal became the two most viable options for residents and IDOT engineers.

A J-turn would direct drivers through a crossover, into a turnaround or u-turn and travel back the opposite direction to continue north or south. This prevents drivers from having to cross four lanes of traffic. But Dockstader said much of the public response received on the J-turn at the public meetings was filled with confusion and concern.

At the 2009 public meeting in Baxter, residents were not convinced that farm equipment and semi traffic would be able to navigate the J-turn. With the current speed limit between 60 and 65 mph, residents told the IDOT they were leery of the speeds going into the J-turn maneuver. Dockstader felt residents looked at the J-turn as a “band-aid” rather than a solution.

“The advantages of the J-turn is it eliminates some of the crossing movements,” Dockstader said. “The biggest advantage is it reduces the number of conflict points. At the public meeting nobody seemed to be supportive of the J-turn. We heard a lot of comments, but people thought it was unusual, unknown and people didn’t like it.”

The engineer said the J-turn’s disadvantage is the extra distance the driver has to travel. Documents provided by Dockstader show the IDOT has built 65 interchanges statewide in the last 10 years, but a J-turn has never been constructed in Iowa.

Stoplight non-starter

The question of putting stoplights at the intersection was also raised by area residents — a system that would post flashing lights roughly a quarter mile from the intersections activating when the traffic light was about to turn red at the intersections. This system is used for traffic control on Highway 163 near Southeast Polk High School.

Dockstader and the IDOT commissioned Iowa State University’s Center for Transportation Education to do a feasibility study in 2014, to determine if the intersection met federal warrant requirements for a stoplight system. The report found the intersection met none of eight requirements.

The IDOT returned with the department’s “preferred” diamond interchange and the alternative J-turn at a public meeting in 2014, where Dockstader said talk of the stoplight dominated the meeting. But the IDOT felt the interchange was the safest route to take.

Cleverley is now left with pushing reconsideration of the J-turn or convicting the IDOT to reexamine installing a stoplight system to keep his farm intact.

Accident stats

Although the parties may not yet agree on the proper solution to the problem, no one is denying the duel-intersection is unsafe. The IDOT has compiled statistics on the number of fatalities at both U.S. Highway 65/IA 117 and U.S 65/ County Highway F17 intersections from 2003 to 2014. At the Highway 117 crossing, six fatalities were recorded in 80 total accidents. The Highway F17 crossing saw three fatal accidents in 31 total collisions — this is a combined total of nine fatal crashes in 111 accidents in a 10-year period.

According to IDOT records, one in every 139 crashes statewide resulted in a fatality from 2003 to 2013. Other four-lane expressways in the state experience one fatality for every 86 crashes, but the combined crashes at the two intersections crossing Highway 330/65 resulted in one fatality for every 12 accidents.

The CTRE also reexamined the nine IDOT proposals to ensure engineers conceived every possible alternative design. The study found that the 1-mile stretch was one of seven expressways in the state to have three or more fatalities in a 10-year period.

The IDOT added turning lanes off the crossing highways in 2011, in an effort to slow crashes until a permanent solution could be found.

Traffic enforcement

Jasper County Sheriff John Halferty has been involved in traffic enforcement at the 1-mile stretch of road for more than a decade. He is also a volunteer for the Mingo Fire Department which is dispatched for emergency medical service call at the intersection.

Jasper County has automatic aid dispatch from Mingo, Baxter and Colfax in the event of a crash on Highway 330.

“It’s easy for me to say you just need to pay attention, but everyone gets busy and everyone gets distracted,” Halferty said.

Halferty said the addition of the stop signs and turning lanes in 2011 has greatly improved the safety of the intersections but he agrees something more needs to be done. In his observations most of the accidents at intersections appear to occur during daylight hours, which Halferty attributes to visibility.

The sheriff has timed traffic movement with the blind spot created by the A-post between a car’s windshield and door frame. He said that while crossing either intersection, it’s possible to look both ways and not see the oncoming traffic. Halferty believes the glare of oncoming headlights during night driving mitigates the blind spot.

The sheriff said he was first opposed to the diamond interchange because of the cost and its affect on local landowners. He wants a solution that is not burdensome to taxpayers or Cleverley, but he said reducing the high speed impacts has to be the top priority of the project.

“Any solution will not guarantee no injuries and no deaths,” Halferty said. “It’s a challenge for us, but the right people are working on making the best decision possible.”

Legislative intervention

Cleverley has contacted State Sen. Chaz Allen (D-Newton) who is now acting as a line of communication between the DOT and the organic farmer. Allen said the first priority for the intersection will be safety of the drivers. But Allen is re-examining all the proposals offered by the IDOT and hopes to find a compromise between Cleverley and the state agency that’s both cost effective and the least burdensome to the farmland owner.

“His family and his farm are taking the brunt of this interchange,” Allen said. “The IDOT is with the community .... they’re focused on making this safe.”

Allen began work on behalf of Cleverley at the beginning of the 2015 legislative session and has met with both the farmer and Dockstader.

Allen said he wants to reexamine both the J-turn and putting stoplights at the intersection, but as of Monday, Dockstader said the diamond interchange still is the proposal in the IDOT’s five-year major projects plan.

The public meetings did result in letters of support for the diamond interchange from both the City of Baxter and the Baxter Community School Districts — two parties who represent citizen commuters and students who are transported by bus through the intersection on a daily basis.

Grassroots effort

In 2013, Cleverley and his supporters began a Change.org petition to prevent the interchange from segmenting Cleverley Farms. The online campaign has garnered nearly 6,300 signatures, and Cleverley has received 3,000 additional hard copy signatures. He said 2,000 of those are from “the neighborhood” of Collins, Baxter and Mingo residents and the additional 1,000 are from patrons of his farmers market booth.

“I don’t want to think about what we have to do if the IDOT gets their way,” Cleverley said. “I have to try. It’s not like I have anything to loose.”

Contact Mike Mendehall at mmendenhall@jaspercountytribune.com