New interchange means Greenbelt Trail closure through 2025

CLIVE, Iowa — The Clive Greenbelt Trail is closing under the interstate on October 1. Contractors have begun carving the hillside east of Interstate 35/80 in Clive and Urbandale. The work is preliminary earth moving to prepare a wider footprint to build a new interchange at Hickman Road.

“There’s a whole lot of work that needs to be done to start widening the interstate getting the on-ramp and offramp ready to go and other parts of the project that, unfortunately, we do need to close the Greenbelt Trail where it passes underneath the interstate,” said Pete De Kock, Clive Assistant City Manager. “This isn’t a very big section of trail, but it’s a really important one because there are not many ways to get safely pass the interstate when you’re walking and when you’re biking.”

The City of Clive has placed a detour map to help both cyclists and walkers to safely get to the other side. It does mean going quite a bit out of the way.

“We expect this closure to be in place until the end of 2025, which is a long time but the reason it has to be there is that there will be very big equipment being placed to stabilize the creek and also above on the bridge itself, widening those lanes, widening the bridge,” said De Kock. “When you’ve got that much heavy equipment and that much heavy material you have to make sure you’re keeping the situation safe.”

On the trail walkers and bikers were not aware the trail would be closing there.

“Sometimes I walk all the way to Grays Lake on the trail so it’s kind of a bummer to hear it’s gonna be closed,” said Melissa Jochims, of West Des Moines. “I’ll have to figure out another favorite trail.”

“I don’t know what I’m gonna do, but I can walk the other direction but the sun’s brighter over there so I don’t know,” said John Walker, of West Des Moines. “It’s nice to walk and it’s shady in places in the summertime.”

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