Rehoboth should rethink entrance to city

State transportation officials, the experts who brought us Five Points and the adjacent Malfunction Junction, have redesigned how pedestrians and cyclists will enter Rehoboth Beach – with the promise construction can begin in 2018.

That would be great news, except the proposed pathway looks likely to become Malfunction Junction south.

Both vehicles and cyclists coming from Route 1 cross the Lewes-Rehoboth Canal, passing over a drawbridge. Transportation officials propose vehicles, pedestrians and cyclists will share the bridge, with pedestrians and cyclists sharing the same sidewalks. DelDOT's plan is for pedestrians and cyclists to travel both directions on the outbound side of the bridge - all sharing the same 10-foot "trail."

People who have carried beach chairs or cycled over the drawbridge know it's a tricky proposition on a quiet day, to say nothing of summer afternoons, when people cross with strollers, toddlers, umbrellas and pets.

At a recent presentation, DelDOT planners said a separate pedestrian bridge would be great – but immediately added it's not in the foreseeable future. Perhaps that's because the bridge planners envision it would have to be so high that getting onto it would take up space DelDOT could never acquire.

Yet cities worldwide have built pedestrian drawbridges that not only function; they become tourist attractions in their own right. Google the whimsical Willemstad Bridge or Brazil's Friedrich Bayer Bridge, both built to solve problems not unlike Rehoboth's. Or perhaps there is a way to cantilever a bike/pedestrian bridge alongside the existing bridge.

Rehoboth officials should not give in to DelDOT's make-do plans. The entrance into Rehoboth deserves at least as much design attention as the mile-long boardwalk across the marsh on the celebrated Gordons Pond Trail – and local legislators should be willing to find at least as much money as they found for the $1.6 million Church Street traffic signal or the Lewes Dog Park. Why not hold a design competition and let creative minds come up with a plan that will bring everyone safely into town and will also inspire generations with its ingenuity and charm? This is the entrance to Rehoboth Beach. It deserves nothing less.