Rehoboth approves more King Charles crosswalks
In an effort to increase pedestrian safety, Rehoboth Beach officials will add crosswalks to all the intersections on King Charles Avenue. Commissioners tasked staff with the project following a discussion on the topic during a workshop Dec. 8.
The city has been considering pedestrian improvements on King Charles for years. As part of a city-wide traffic study conducted during the summer of 2023, a recommendation was made to implement a traffic-calming and pedestrian improvement pilot program for King Charles. The following summer, the city temporarily installed plastic bollards to simulate curb bump outs at New Castle Street and crosswalks with relief islands in the middle of Stockley Street. The bollards were removed in early 2025, but the painted crosswalks remained through this past summer.
Assistant City Manager Evan Miller introduced the workshop topic. He was bringing it forward because it’s budget-building season for Fiscal Year 2027, which begins April 1. In an effort to best estimate parking revenue, staff needs to know now about any possible changes to the parking configuration on King Charles that would affect the number of spaces.
Miller reviewed the existing conditions – head-in parking from Philadelphia to New Castle streets; parallel parking from New Castle to Queen streets. The width of travel lanes can vary significantly, said Miller, from about 12 feet wide where angled spots are to 22 feet wide where the parallel spots are, he said.
One of the issues facing the city, said Miller, is that relatively minor changes – striping parking spots in the parallel area, for example – could trigger ADA improvements that would mean the installation of bump outs at intersections with cross streets. This would ultimately lead to a decrease in the total number of parking spots and require handicap-accessible parking spaces, he said.
A traffic-calming option presented to commissioners included narrowing the street by changing the parking from parallel to head-in, angled all the way down to Queen Street. Miller said the city would gain parking spaces and the travel lane would be much narrower.
Commissioners were not in favor of this option.
Property owner Collins Roth was also in favor of keeping parallel parking on King Charles, saying that changing it entirely to head-in parking is not safe and would effectively turn the street into a parking lot. He said commissioners should consider the installation of a dedicated bike lane as a way to narrow vehicle travel lanes.
In the end, commissioners tasked staff with painting just the crosswalks at all the intersections from New Castle to Queen streets.
The crosswalks on King Charles aren’t likely to be that last pedestrian improvements. This should be seen as part of an overall approach to safety in all parts of the city, said Commissioner Chris Galanty. He recommended the city’s new streets and public safety committee take up ways to improve pedestrian safety on State Road and Henlopen and Columbia avenues.
Commissioner Patrick Gossett said he would like to see the committee look into adding stop signs along King Charles too.
Commissioner Mark Saunders, committee chair, said those topics are already on the agenda for the committee’s next meeting, and recommendations will be coming back to commissioners soon.
Chris Flood has been working for the Cape Gazette since early 2014. He currently covers Rehoboth Beach and Henlopen Acres, but has also covered Dewey Beach and the state government. He covers environmental stories, business stories and random stories on subjects he finds interesting, and he also writes a column called Choppin’ Wood that runs every other week. He’s a graduate of the University of Maine and the Landing School of Boat Building & Design.
