Des Moines is scrapping a decades-old plan to build a five-lane highway stretching from West Des Moines to downtown through the city's south side.

Traffic volume does not justify the $215 million price tag for the Southwest Connector, city officials say.

Instead, the city will focus on improvements to other streets commuters use to reach downtown.

"We're really taking a hard look at what new things we're building because that means there's more things to take care of," City Traffic Engineer Jennifer McCoy said. "It makes more sense to us to improve what we already have instead of building something brand new."

First proposed in 1998, the Southwest Connector was envisioned as a diagonal road running from 63rd Street and McKinley Avenue in the city's far southwest corner to Southwest Seventh Street and Indianola Road, just south of downtown.

(See the red line on the map below.)

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The project was expected to ease traffic congestion on Fleur Drive and Park Avenue.

At that time, traffic was projected to reach 41,500 vehicles per day on Fleur Drive and 20,000 vehicles per day on Park Avenue by 2020.

But traffic levels have changed very little on those roads in the past 20 years, McCoy said. Today, Fleur Drive averages 30,000 vehicles and day while Park Avenue sees 12,500 vehicles.

"Traffic volumes were projected to be over capacity," she said. "But we haven't even reached capacity levels."

Building the Southwest Connector would only reduce the number of cars on those streets by about 1,500 per day, McCoy said. Neither street is expected to top 80 percent of capacity in the next 20 years.

When originally proposed, the highway would have linked directly to a new terminal planned at the time for the west side of Des Moines International Airport.

Officials now want to build a $500 million terminal on the east side of the airport property along Fleur Drive — opposite the Southwest Connector path.

"It made sense at one point," said Erin Olson-Douglas, Des Moines' economic development director.

Eliminating a diagonal road opens more land for development on the south side. About 276 acres of undeveloped property sits between the airport and 63rd Street (Highway 28).

That includes the 28 acres of vacant land at 4701 SW 63rd St. where Waldinger Corp. plans to build a $21 million corporate office and production facility. The Southwest Connector would have run through the middle of Waldinger's site, eliminating about 3.5 acres of developable land there, said Ryan Moffatt, economic development coordinator.

"The right-of-way necessary for the ultimate build-out of the planned roadway was 150 feet wide and diagonal in configuration, which severely encumbered the development potential of the Waldinger site, and in our belief, other privately-owned sites further north and east of their site," he said.

Meanwhile, West Des Moines is on track to open an extension to Veterans Parkway by the end of 2019.

When the L-shaped corridor opens, vehicles will be able to travel southwest from 63rd Street in Des Moines and hook up with Grand Prairie Parkway, about 3 miles west of Interstate Highway 35, where the road turns back north to Interstate Highway 80 in Waukee.

The Southwest Connector would have linked directly to that route. West Des Moines officials counted on a Des Moines extension as part of a regional system, said Tom Hadden, West Des Moines city manager.

"The system was designed to eventually feed to the Southwest Connector in Des Moines, and I think it would be a good thing for the city and all of us if it was there," he said.

West Des Moines believes traffic counts on the Des Moines side will increase once Veterans Parkway opens, he said, making the Southwest Connector necessary.

Instead, traffic from Veterans Parkway hits 63rd Street, and eventually Park Avenue to Fleur Drive to get downtown. Commuters could also head farther north to Grand Avenue.

Des Moines and the Metropolitan Planning Organization will explore intersection improvements to 63rd Street and McKinley Avenue, 63rd Street and Park Avenue, and 63rd Street and George Flagg Parkway.

The city is considering an extension to link George Flagg Parkway and Bell Avenue south of Water Works Park and investing in roadways south of Park Avenue to provide access to vacant land for development.