In 1952, Lucille Ball starred in a classic comedy skit, “The Chocolate Factory Conveyor Belt.”
In it, chocolate candies roll out faster than Lucille can pack them. She then resorts to stuffing them in her mouth, then still overwhelmed, into her blouse. Her obtuse supervisor thinks she is being an efficient packer, and in the comical climax, turns up the speed of the conveyor belt!
Those who have supervised the development in Sussex County are seemingly equally obtuse.
The Sussex County conveyor belt of housing is cramming cars onto wholly inadequate roadways so quickly that it has DelDOT going around in traffic circles. Yet more – and still more – developments are approved. While Lucille Ball’s skit was classic comedic farce, Sussex County’s unbridled development is just plain old farce. Lucille Ball’s ’50s skit was a joke that we could all laugh at, but the joke that Sussex County development has become is a joke on all of us who live here.
Eighteen years after the “I Love Lucy” parody, Joni Mitchell released her classic song, “Big Yellow Taxi” with the memorable lyrics, “They paved paradise/And put up a parking lot.” If Ms. Mitchell was writing her song about Sussex County in 2025, her lyrics might be, “They paved paradise/And put up a roundabout.”
But roundabouts are not going to slow the congealing congestion of our byways, the progressive suffocation of our quality of life, and the increasing threat of harm on our roadways.
The development of Sussex County has been and is reckless, and that is no laughing matter.
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