Iowa City advances Burlington Street bridge planning; dam safety and fish passage also eyed

Iowa City planners on Nov. 3 presented a preferred concept to replace the city-owned eastbound Burlington Street bridge and to modify the adjacent Burlington Street dam to improve safety and fish passage. HDR engineering lead Mike Curic told the council the eastbound structure is "a 100 years old, and it's nearing its useful life cycle, so it needs to be replaced."

The presentation outlined a year-long planning study with input from a technical advisory committee (city, Iowa DOT, MPO and University of Iowa), a stakeholder working group, one-on-one meetings and public outreach, including an online survey that produced about 550 responses. Curic said the team advanced a traditional beam-bridge alternative because it is more cost‑effective, allows staged construction for pedestrians, vehicles and utilities, maintains the viewscape, and improves multimodal separation and comfort.

The study also evaluated the Burlington Street dam immediately south of the bridge. Curic said the team is advancing a modification option focused on safety and aquatic connectivity rather than full dam removal, which the presentation said would be highly disruptive to the local water-supply system and infrastructure. Describing a proposed stepped modification, Curic said the design would reduce the current's lethality; "if you go over it, it would be non lethal," he said. The modification would include a fish-and-boater bypass to reconnect upstream and downstream aquatic ecosystems.

Curic identified the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers' Continuing Authorities Program (Section 206) as a potential funding avenue, noting the Corps program can provide up to roughly $15 million for eligible projects and that any Corps involvement would trigger a feasibility review and cost-share arrangements. He and city staff said if the Corps took on the dam work, the overall effort would likely be broken into two separately managed projects (Corps-managed dam work and city-managed bridge work) to enable independent timelines and phasing.

Speakers asked detailed technical and management questions during the Q&A. Council participants sought clarity on ownership: Curic said the eastbound bridge is currently city-owned, the westbound bridge is owned by the Iowa DOT, the dam is owned by the University of Iowa, and the pedestrian structure and ramp have shared maintenance/ownership arrangements among the city, university and DOT. On ecological concerns, one speaker noted local bird migrations, saying, "The Pelican migration comes through twice a year and they really like to hang out on this river." Curic said the fish bypass is intended to reconnect the aquatic ecosystem and would be designed in coordination with the Iowa DNR fisheries and boater-passage staff.

The presentation covered other site elements: a grade-separated option at the Riverside–Burlington intersection to improve pedestrian and bicycle safety while maintaining an at-grade option for redundancy; a range of ADA-compliant ramp solutions to replace a non‑compliant spiral ramp; and a West Campus pedestrian plaza concept with a centralized bus hub to improve transit operations and wayfinding. Curic said traffic modeling supports widening Byington to at least a three-lane section to support operational needs, including access to hospital parking and the trauma center.

Next steps include additional renderings later in the year, an environmental clearance process the team expects in 2026, and coordination with Iowa DOT bridge work on Highway 6 to avoid overlapping construction. City staff and HDR are targeting a construction start in 2029, subject to funding, permitting and interagency coordination.