KNOXVILLE, Iowa –The Mile Long Bridge over Red Rock Lake has closed until October for a re-surfacing project. The road is the route of Highway 14. It connects the towns of Knoxville, Pella, Monroe, and Pleasantville.

This leaves people on both sides of the water altering their route to get where to where they are going.

Rosie Dye works in Monroe at her family’s business. She has to take her son to daycare in Knoxville. A 20-minute drive turned into a 40-minute drive.

“More miles on the car, more wear and tear, good thing I just put new tires on it, more gas miles, more money going into the gas tank,” said Dye. “We gotta wake up earlier so we can eat breakfast earlier, get dressed earlier, leave earlier, go to bed earlier. Everything has to happen quicker now where I don’t even have enough time it seems like in a day to do all those things anyway now I have less time.”

An alternate route to get from the road closure around to Knoxville goes through Pella. In Knoxville the Rib Shack has been experiencing travel changes since last year.

“So, last year there were several times when the dam was closed, the highway on the north side of Red Rock was closed cause they were working on the highways and what not and so it was kinda hard to keep track,” said Katie Hilliard, manager of the Rib Shack. “You try to go one direction one day and it was closed so I’m going to go the other direction and then it would be closed or on one way.” 

Hilliard counts on Pella customers getting to Knoxville to eat at her establishment.

“For us catering over the long way around, and I know other members of that community that work at like Vermeer and Pella Corp, have a bit of congestion,” said Hilliard. “We have to take a route it’s just a little bit longer. It’s not a huge inconvenience, but we do have to be mindful of that.”

Residents of the area agree the re-surfacing needs to be done, and the DOT did a good job of letting everyone know about the upcoming road closure.

Iowa News: