After reading DelDOT’s response about the Atlantic Fields traffic numbers, I honestly don’t know whether to laugh or shake my head. Council asked straightforward questions because this project will push tens of thousands of cars a day onto roads that already buckle under far less. What we got back from DelDOT was a short answer that explains almost nothing.
Instead of walking the public through how they arrived at such a massive traffic estimate or whether it reflects what actually happens on the ground, DelDOT fell back on a generic explanation that the standard shopping center method was used. That might pass as an answer for a strip mall with eight or 10 small shops, but Atlantic Fields is not a handful of small shops. It is a cluster of huge national chains that pull customers from far beyond our immediate area.
Everyone around here understands the difference. A Costco, Target or Whole Foods doesn’t function like a bunch of small retailers. They draw steady all-day traffic, weekend surges and heavy seasonal peaks. When those kinds of retailers get lumped into the same calculation as smaller stores, the final number gets watered down. The impact looks manageable on paper even when we know, from years of experience, that it won’t be manageable at all in real life.
DelDOT’s response makes no mention of whether the traffic estimate accounts for how much our travel patterns have changed in recent years. Anyone who lives here sees it. More visitors, more year-round residents, more deliveries, more everything. It seems that DelDOT chose to rely on older information instead.
Maybe there’s a good reason for that, but they didn’t give one. And when a project of this size is going to reshape our roads and our daily routines for decades, “just trust us” is not good enough.
Council has a tough job, but the people who live here have an even tougher one if these numbers turn out to be wrong. You deserve to know whether the information you were given truly matches the reality we all will live with for decades to come.
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