As the area in and around Milton grows and expands, the Delaware Department of Transportation is taking a proactive approach to prepare for that growth through two major traffic studies. 

DelDOT sought public input at a June 5 open house at Milton Elementary School on two planning efforts: the Milton Active Transportation Plan, which is looking at ways to improve bicycling and walking in town, and the Coastal Corridors study, which is looking at traffic improvements on Route 16 through Milton, which has become one of the more popular routes to the beach over the last decade.

At the open house, DelDOT officials were on hand to discuss both plans, and had maps available for a view of the greater Milton area. Attendees were encouraged to leave sticky notes on the maps with ideas for further study. 

DelDOT planner Austin Gray said, “Both plans are in the very early stages of their respective study. Tonight, we’re just hearing what the public has to say about the study overall.”

Regarding the active transportation plan, Gray said, “When you add bicycle and pedestrian facilities, you want to separate from traffic as much as possible. The goal here is to build facilities where you’re not going to interact with vehicles as much as possible. In a lot of places downtown, that’s not possible; there’s not a lot of land we can build on. So we have to look at traffic-calming measures in order to slow those vehicles down, and make [drivers] more aware of their surroundings and look for those bicycles and pedestrians.”

Regarding the Milton Coastal Corridors study, Gray said the big thing for DelDOT is to understand how traffic moves in and around the town, and seek alternatives that will reduce congestion, increase safety and improve travel times. He said one of the things DelDOT is trying to figure out is what residents and users of that road want it to be.

“Do we want 16 to be a higher-speed road that caters mainly to vehicles? Or do we want it to be more like a main street and implement lower speed, traffic-calming measures, more pedestrian amenities, that sort of stuff,” Gray said.

Other factors DelDOT is looking at are the effect of potential traffic changes on the burgeoning commercial sector on Route 16, particularly passing through Milton, which is expected to add a Royal Farms, a McDonald’s, two storage facilities and an office park in the coming years, as well as the effect of the new overpass at Route 16 and Route 1, which is expected to be completed next year. Gray said DelDOT is trying to be forward-thinking with regard to these two studies as more development activity happens along the Route 16 corridor.

“Development along 16 is going to occur. Development throughout Milton is going to occur. And it's going to occur in the timeline before we can implement these plans. So the best thing we can do is to monitor and keep track of these things, and align those things with our study and what the community wants to see,” he said. 

DelDOT is currently conducting public surveys on the two plans, which can be found at publicinput.com/miltonsr16 and publicinput.com/miltonatp. The surveys will be accepted through Friday, July 5. From there, the planning efforts will split off and hold separate public workshops. A workshop on the active transportation plan is expected in August, while a workshop on Coastal Corridors plan is expected in the fall. A final report on the active transportation plan is expected in January, while the first draft of the Coastal Corridors study is expected in spring 2025.