Growing up I often heard the saying, “Iowa has two seasons — winter and road construction.” For me, the most frustrating part of the road construction has always been getting caught by surprise. With the launch of our new traffic page, hopefully we can reduce the element of surprise.

The traffic page launched late last week at www.iowastatedaily.net/traffic. You can also find it on our navigation bar under the news and living buttons. It features a large Google map of Ames showing different construction projects. It also includes briefs on the different projects with more information. There is also a spot for upcoming and recently completed projects.

While the winter season is right around the corner, launching the page near the end of the road construction season has given us a chance to iron out some of the kinks and come up with a process for keeping the page updated.

We’ve also included a Twitter search widget as a key element on the page. We know that it’s highly likely we’ve missed a project happening somewhere in Ames and that other events can shut down a road with little warning. Our hope is that this widget, which searches for tweets with the #amestraffic hashtag, will help provide additional updates.

Please explore the page and tell us what you think. We’d love to hear feedback about how the page looks, functions or if there is a project we’ve missed. Leave a comment on this post, email me at [email protected] or call my office at 515-294-4149.