BIKEIOWA NOTE: Ingersoll Ave was the street where Des Moines' first bike lanes were placed.
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A years-long project to beautify and repair a 1-mile stretch of Ingersoll Avenue with a focus on pedestrian and bicycle access will include Des Moines' first elevated bike lanes, providing a new type of buffer between cyclists and vehicles.
Construction on the three-year, $17 million project, which extends from Martin Luther King Jr. Parkway to 31st Street, kicks off in the next few days. The work will include a total reconstruction of the roadway, new storm sewers, buried overhead utilities, widened sidewalks, upgraded bus stops, new pedestrian crossings, the elevated bike lanes and landscaping.
"It's going to be a brand-new corridor by the time we're done," said Scott Almeida, senior project engineer with Kirkham Michael, which created design plans for the city