Within the next year, one of the main thoroughfares of Perry will be getting a substantial facelift, as the City and the Iowa Department of Transportation are ready to move on a project to remake 1st Street/Highway 144.
City Administrator Sven Peterson says the two entities have worked together already on the unofficial first phase of the project, which was redoing the intersection of 1st Street and Willis Avenue. Peterson says the next phase will be much more extensive. “For a few years now, we’ve been in communication with the Iowa DOT about overlaying 1st Street and then restriping the entire stretch of 1st Street through town. And we are looking at doing a four-lane to three-lane conversion through the whole stretch of 1st Street. So that improves safety, helps with traffic flows, (and) it just is kind of the standard now that we’re going to.”
Peterson says the work should be done some time in the third or fourth quarter of 2019. Before then, the City and DOT will be working on reaching out to the public to make sure they are aware of the impending changes to the road. To see renderings of the proposed changes to Highway 144, click the PDF file below.