A classic midwestern city, Des Moines is laid out on an orderly grid. It is a fairly compact city with highway access and numerous wide, east–west avenues, making it easy to get to destinations all over town . Residents enjoy an average 20-minute commute, and convenient highway interchanges and extensive arterial roads make it easy to get around.
First the basics: North–south streets are numbered, with numbers running higher as you move east or west from downtown. West-side streets have no directional (e.g., 1st Street), while east-side streets include a directional (e.g., E. 1st Street or NE 14th Street).
I-235 cuts east–west across the center of Des Moines, past the State Capitol and just north of downtown’s cluster of office towers, before running west toward Drake University and nearby Ingersoll Avenue, home to some of Des Moines’s hidden treasures in dining and shopping. Nearby are the older residential neighborhoods of Beaverdale, with its rows of brick houses, and South of Grand, which has blocks of elegant, tasteful homes. Back closer to downtown is Sherman Hill, a neighborhood that has rebounded with new townhouses, condominiums, and funky office spaces.
On- and off-ramps for I-235 run onto downtown streets that alternate running one-way north or south—stay alert as you approach downtown on the highway. Also pay attention if you are leaving downtown and heading north on 6th Street to merge onto I-235—it is a four-lane street that fills up with traffic, which can make it difficult to reach the entrance ramp if you are all the way on the other side of the street.
Just west of downtown on I-235 is the exit to M. L. King Jr. Parkway and Fleur Drive, where the road runs south before splitting into two roads: Fleur continues south, heading toward Gray’s Lake and Water Works Park, the latter of which includes an arboretum, and the airport and zoo, while M. L. King splits off and heads east, running along the south edge of downtown and passing near the Court Avenue Entertainment District, a former warehouse district turned dining and barhopping mecca, and Principal Park, home of the Iowa Cubs baseball team. Court Avenue can get crowded with traffic before and after games, and is closed completely to traffic on Saturday mornings from spring through fall for Des Moines’s popular farmers’ market.
Overview
Major streets in downtown run east–west and include Grand Avenue, which is a one-way street running west, and Locust Street, which is a one-way street running east. You can spot the Iowa State Capitol from downtown just by looking east along Locust Street: It stands at the far end of the East Village, a trendy shopping and dining neighborhood. A section of Walnut Street, 1 block south of Locust, is closed to cars during the workday. The extensive downtown skywalk blankets downtown, its passages providing a welcome relief during Des Moines’s bitter winters and a convenience the rest of the year. The second story–level passageways crisscross downtown’s streets, with easy access to hotels, parking garages, and shopping areas.
For a full map of the skywalk, go to http://arcgis.dmgov.org/extmapcenter/maps/skywalk.pdf. Directories are also located along the passageways.
Overall, downtown Des Moines, as well as the rest of the city, is refreshingly easy to get around by car: At rush hour the traffic still rushes, and traffic overall moves fairly smoothly and quickly along.
It’s easy to get around Des Moines by bicycle as well: Recently installed bike lanes on Ingersoll Avenue complement the plethora of trails that wind through downtown and out to the outer reaches of the city and surrounding countryside.