The following letter was sent to Sussex County Council with a copy provided to the Cape Gazette for publication.
This letter is about the Belle Mead and Atlantic Fields planning underway. It is important as you review the documentation provided by DelDOT to acknowledge who is sending it: a group of talented engineers. Having worked with extremely gifted engineers in my past life, what made our team successful was pairing these engineers up with logical feet-on-the-ground decision-makers. DelDOT will not tell you that it is a bad idea or a poor choice to locate the Atlantic Fields (or Belle Mead) along Route 24. They are trained to try and find ways to minimize the several choke points that bring traffic to a slow crawl during rush hours, holidays and especially during the beach season.
They will not tell you how bad it’ll be, but only that they can try to reduce the stress. Sadly, answers to those questions are about 10 years stagnant. Nobody questioned them (or paid attention) then. The Route 24 corridor is already a mess. I challenge you to drive Route 24 during rush hours or on a Monday morning/Friday afternoon and draw a different conclusion.
Seriously, how much traffic flow (stress reduction) is possible along the Route 24 corridor? The flow is already lousy much of the time, and unmanageable the remainder. No matter how much good Belle Mead and especially Atlantic Fields may bring to the area, those who traverse Route 24 will suffer.
Oh yes, not to mention access by emergency response units.
So: Yay to Costco, but boo to locating it anywhere near Route 24.
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