Finishing Saints Avenue ends 18-year era

by Larry Kershner

News Editor

The major four-lane project through Iowa, known as the Avenue of the Saints, has taken Don Carmody many miles as a catalyst for the project that connects St. Louis to St. Paul.

Don looks back on the completed project with satisfaction and relief, but it's also a somber moment for him. "It's going to create a vacuum," he said, adding that the road has occupied so much of his life and thoughts.

For the better part of two decades, Carmody has had the Avenue of the Saints on his mind and he's kept it on others' minds, especially those responsible for its funding. The 268-mile project came in just under $500 million and was slightly over deadline by four years after there had been some funding setbacks in the mid- to late-1990s and 2000.

Just 15 years ago, he noted, there was no funding for anything called the Avenue of the Saints.

Nevertheless, Carmody said he had innumerable trips to DOT commission meetings, plus trips to Washington, D.C. to visit with the Iowa delegation, to talk about the Saints' funding and keeping the project going.

"You couldn't get this built today," Carmody said. The Avenue's timing was crucial, he noted, because since it started, there has been a shift in funding priorities toward maintenance, rather than building new roadways.

Carmody, who stepped down as a DOT commissioner earlier this year, noted that there are currently not enough funds for maintaining Iowa's highways, much less building major new corridors.

On Friday, June 16, at 2 p.m. a celebration ceremony will convene on the south side of the Mt. Pleasant Community high School building at 2104 S. Grand Ave., to ceremonially cut the ribbon on the entire highway project.

You can read the entire story in our June 14 issue.