MILTON, Del.- The Delaware Department of Transportation has big plans for Route 16, and wants your help.
On Tuesday evening, DelDOT held an open house on plans to address seven miles of Route 16 between Ellendale and Milton. DelDOT says its currently soliciting ideas from the public in addition to examining safety changes, pedestrian improvements, and possibly large-scale projects such as a bypass.
"We just concluded our Coastal Corridors study, which really looked at several of our East-West corridors, and to no one's surprise, we found that we're lacking an infrastructure between not just that traffic that happens seasonally, but now on a daily basis," says Director of Community Relations C.R. McLeod. "So it's really imperative that we begin investing the time and energy to improve the infrastructure on those East-West corridors."
McLeod says ideas range from adding sidewalks to improving visibility. A big focus is looking at intersections which data shows have a lot of crashes. Long-term changes, such as a bypass like Millsboro's, could be on the table.
"So what we're really going to be doing is just starting to have a conversation with the community about what does the future of Route 16 look like? Is a bypass something that we should explore?," McLeod tells CoastTV. "There's pros and cons. Pros would obviously take a lot of traffic off of 16 going around Milton. However, there then becomes the need to support property acquisition and really other needs to support that."
Work on Route 16 and Route One is on schedule. DelDOT is taking public comments on Route 16 between Milton and Ellendale for at least the next month.Â
