AMES, Iowa—All the information you need to more easily travel Iowa’s state and U.S. highways and interstates is now on one, cohesive website www.511ia.org. For many years Iowa’s authoritative source of traveler information has been available in different formats depending on the needs of the driver and the bandwidth of your internet service.
A single, fully functional site is now available with just one click. Previous versions which included a “Streamlined” version for lower bandwidth connections and “Full Featured” versions for travelers and commercial drivers have been retired.
The new site, which can easily be viewed on any device, has been ramping up its functionality over the last year, and the final pieces were added in late June to allow the old sites to be retired. Anyone who had bookmarked the previous sites will automatically be redirected to the new www.511ia.org.
The 511 system allows you to set up an account that alerts you of activity such as construction or incidents on routes or areas you have saved. In addition, you can save your favorite cameras to more easily see the traffic situation on routes you want to monitor. If you had an account previously set up on 511, your account was transitioned to the new site back in March.
With the retirement of the final legacy 511 website, we are launching a refreshed 511 logo. The popular 511 app for iOS and Android is also in the process of being updated and new features will be available in 2022.
As a reminder, www.511ia.org tracks traffic incidents, highway construction, and weather impacts on state and U.S. highways, and interstates. Traffic events on county roads and city streets are not shown on www.511ia.org.
There will also be an adjustment made to the 511 information on Twitter. The @statewide511 Twitter posts will no longer be retweeted to the @iowadot Twitter feed. All information input into the 511 system will continue to come to you on the @statewide511 Twitter handle. The @IowaDOT feed will focus on traffic safety and transportation-related information. There will be no change to the regional or metro 511 Facebook or Twitter feeds.
(contributed press release)
