(Not so) slowly but surely, the Delaware Department of Transportation seems intent on choking the west-to-east flow of traffic in Sussex County, especially from western Sussex to the beaches and Inland Bays.
A recent for instance is the installation of multiple complete stops along Route 20 between Route 9 (Hardscrabble Road) and Route 113 in Millsboro.
This 9.6-mile stretch now has four new stops since summer 2022 at basically dinky, country roads.
The stops (going west to east) beyond Hardscrabble occur at 0.5 miles, then 1.8 miles farther, followed by another 3.1 miles later, and finally one more 1.9 miles farther. Then it’s 2.3 miles to reach Route 113. These restrictions, especially the line-of-sight stop just east of Hardscrabble, are simply ridiculous in what appear to be unincorporated, lightly populated areas! And all this to get you to one of the most congested/restricted stretches of road in Sussex (from Delaware Avenue in Millsboro through four traffic lights past Lowe’s) on a good day and much worse on a beach travel day.
To us, there appears to be little obvious gain in traffic safety from the four new stops at the cost of aggravating the people of western Sussex trying to travel toward the Atlantic while simultaneously decreasing fuel efficiency and increasing fuel costs.
All of this on Route 20 is concurrent with the nearly intolerable congestion along the Route 9 corridor between Georgetown and the Lewes/Rehoboth area – a highly dangerous and problematic situation that continues to scream for remediation, not more traffic lights and no-passing zones from DelDOT planners.
Accordingly, I have requested that DelDOT review what must be flawed criteria and recommendations that allegedly support the cited changes along Route 20, and to undo/redo some of the unjustified changes.
DelDOT must refocus on the really serious problems of west-to-east traffic in Sussex County, and let’s have some really important changes.
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