DelDOT backs off Dartmouth Drive bike box plans

Delaware Department of Transportation is backing off plans to install a bicycle box on Dartmouth Drive in Lewes and will instead search for better locations to pilot a program to improve bike safety at busy intersections.

C.R. McLeod, DelDOT spokesman, said the department plans to look at other locations in eastern Sussex County, but no site has been determined.

McLeod said DelDOT is planning to move forward with a bike box on the new Senator Bikeway in Dover, a 3.5-mile bike route from Dover High School to Route 13. DelDOT is also considering bike boxes in Wilmington and Newark.

A bike box is a painted area for bicyclists only at the front of a turn lane. At Dartmouth Drive, the box was slated to be added to the far right left-turn lane. The box is designed to allow bicyclists to clear the intersection ahead of vehicles turning or going straight across the intersection to Wawa or other stores.

The proposal did not go over well at an April 29 meeting of the Five Points Working Group - a DelDOT group of citizens and lawmakers tasked with developing a transportation plan for the Five Points area. Group members blasted placing the box at one of the Cape Region’s busiest and most confusing intersections, one of the first major intersections encountered by motorists coming from the Cape May-Lewes ferry. 

Working group member and Speaker of the House Rep. Pete Schwartzkopf, D-Rehoboth Beach, said at the meeting, “At what point do we decide this doesn’t work very well? People drive differently wherever they come from than when they’re here. They leave every bit of common sense on whatever bridge they cross to come here.”

Schwartzkopf did not respond to requests for further comment.