(Image provided Iowa DOT)
In Iowa, Interstate 35 bridges in the central part of the state are getting a new look, to honor the Monarch butterfly. “At the Iowa DOT, our bridge designers are ratcheting up the appearance and messages you’ll see on seven bridges being rebuilt along with the expansion of Interstate 35 from Ankeny to Ames,” said a news release Tuesday. The Iowa Deprtment of Transportation says I-35 travels through Minnesota, Iowa, Missouri, Kansas, Oklahoma and Texas, and several years ago, the six states along with the Federal Highway Administration signed a pledge to collaborate on best practices in support of pollinators. Another part of the pledge included increasing awareness of the Monarch Butterfly, including naming I-35 the Monarch Highway. This designation is intended to celebrate the amazing and iconic butterfly species and their annual two-way migration, a critical part of which occurs along this route, said the Iowa DOT.
When the project to increase the number of lanes on I-35 was in the planning stages, Iowa DOT says designers knew seven overhead bridges would need to be replaced to accommodate the wider roadway and this all happened about the same time the Monarch Highway name was bestowed on the road, sparking an idea by aesthetics designer Kimball Olson.
“We knew we wanted to do something to celebrate the Monarch Highway on this key stretch of Interstate 35 and to turn that symbolic idea into a physical one if we could. We had used specific brick patterns to tell a story in the flyover bridge from I-35 to U.S. 30 in Ames, so I knew something special was also possible on these bridges,” said Olson.
You’ll see this pattern on the new bridge over I-35 at the Elkhart exit in Central Iowa. (Image provided Iowa DOT)
What Olson designed is an effect that will be dramatic without a significant increase in the cost of the bridges. Using veneer brickwork on each central supporting pier of those new bridges, snippets of the Monarch butterfly’s wing pattern will be illustrated for interstate travelers, said Iowa DOT.
(Image provided Iowa DOT)
As the seven bridges are built along I-35 between Ankeny and Ames, the bridge piers will each have a unique “butterfly wing” pattern designed into the brickwork. Olson explained, “Using colored bricks instead of paint to portray individual butterfly wing scales enables that dramatic effect sustainably. There’s virtually no maintenance once the bricks are in place.” In addition you’ll catch a glimpse of binary code, the zeros and ones of common computer language, on the west and east ends of the bridges for both northbound and southbound I-35 through a sort of “binary caterpillar” font. When you put this code together, the code spells out “Monarch Highway.”
(Image provided Iowa DOT)
(Image provided Iowa DOT)
The first of these bridges is set to open this week on County Road F-22 (126th Avenue) over I-35 near Elkhart in Central Iowa. The other six will be built over the next six or seven years.
