State transportation officials who visited Dagsboro on Tuesday to talk about a landmark project to bypass U.S. 113, a major north-south route running through the middle of Sussex, instead faced probing questions about relieving congestion on local east-west routes.
While development continues to stress infrastructure in the coastal area, congestion on evacuation routes and delays in projects slated to relieve that congestion is perhaps the most volatile local issue.
A project to expand Route 26 and its local roads, which has already been delayed for years, is caught in a Department of Transportation funding debacle as local residents plead for action.
With DelDOT now attempting to overcome a $1.5 billion capital deficit, the Route 26 project is just one project transportation officials say is now reliant on a fee package proposed by Gov. Ruth Ann Minner. That package includes motor fuel tax and toll increases.
The ubiquitous east-west debate that surfaced between residents and officials again Tuesday unveiled local frustrations and perhaps tainted the U.S. 113 discussion.
“We don’t need north-south” expansion, local truck driver Dean Peoples, 37, said. “We need east-west. I agree that this needs to be talked about. But, as far as what we’re doing next, we need to do east-west.”
Andrew Bing, member of DelDOT’s U.S. 113 team charged with public outreach, attempted to stress the importance of the U.S. 113 project Tuesday, saying that congestion will continue to worsen there as the development presence continues to expand and population continues to increase.
“Twenty years ago, we tried to build a major east-west highway. The community said, ‘Go away,’” Bing said. (A project to build a highway at Route 26 was shot down by property owners as early as the mid-’70s.) “Ten years ago we came back. The community said, ‘Go away,’” he added. “Now, here we are studying north-south and what is everybody saying?”
Bing said that if nothing is done to U.S. 113, the situation there could become familiar to those protesting the lack of action just to the east.
“Something needs to be done,” he said.
DelDOT Project Manager Monroe Hite agreed, saying Tuesday that “doing nothing doesn’t solve the problem. If we walk away today, we will be back.”
Hite and other DelDOT officials led the informational session Tuesday, explaining potential solutions to congestion problems on U.S. 113 from Millsboro to the Maryland line.
Bypass options included six to the east — the longest and seemingly most popular of which picks up just north of Millsboro and drops cars off south of Frankford — with another three to the west and a largely unpopular plan to convert the existing Route 113 into a limited-access highway with local service roads running alongside.
Also, according to law, DelDOT must consider the possibility of not changing the current road at all.
Officials on Tuesday said that all other options — including the on-alignment revamp of existing Route 113 — would mirror Route 1 north of Dover, with entrance and exit ramps and raised crossings. Residents would only be able to cross the new highway — which would come without traffic lights — at designated spots, using the crossing ramps.
Dagsboro Mayor Wayne Baker denounced the on-alignment option, saying that implications to businesses would be too severe, but he supported hurried work on a solution.
“Should we have started 10, 15 years ago?” Baker said. “Absolutely. But we need to start today. We need to think about a separate route.”
Baker recognized, though, the impact to area property owners that comes with building a bypass, which would run through privately owned land. (The on-alignment option would, too, but not to such an extent.)
Hite said before Tuesday’s meeting that property owners who potentially could be impacted have been contacted and notified about public meetings. But there has been surprise expressed by many in the area who were unaware of the “Eastern Bypass” option and how far east it would run.
Jim Bennett, a member of the Millsboro-South Working Group – one of four committees loaded with local community and political leaders from Milford and areas to the south that have worked on the project for several years — has emphasized that information gap recently. Bennett told the Coastal Point that he’d been told more than once in the past few years by DelDOT officials that direct notification of impacted property owners was still considered premature.
DelDOT officials have emphasized that property owners would not have to leave their properties immediately. Hite and Bing said Tuesday that construction could still be decades away.
Many of those indirectly affected are also only now learning of the nature of the proposed changes to Route 113.
DelDOT officials expect a recommendation from the Millsboro-South Working Group in the next couple of months. A DelDOT recommendation should come sometime this summer, with public hearings following. The public is invited to attend the Millsboro-South working group’s next meeting, which is scheduled for 5:30 p.m. on May 29 at the Millsboro Fire Hall.