DelDOT seeking members' absentee 'super majority'
Local civic leaders favored a plan last week to build a bypass to the east of U.S. 113 around Millsboro, Frankford and Dagsboro, over several others that included western bypasses and an unpopular option to convert the main north-south route into a highway only accessible by entrance and exit ramps.
The new road would force some landowners out of their homes and still faces unanswered environmental questions. Environmental agencies reviewing the potential bypass site to determine whether the road would adversely impact the natural environment there must approve work to allow the Delaware Department of Transportation to build there.
Also, it is still unknown how much of an impact the 25-man working group, made up of civic leaders from Millsboro to Selbyville, will have on an eventual DelDOT move. Agency officials deviated from a working group recommendation in Milford recently because not enough of the working group members supported the plan.
A “super majority” of 75 percent — 19 members on the local working group — must approve any plan for their opinion to reflect an official recommendation, DelDOT Project Manager Monroe Hite said Tuesday. Only 13 of the 14 members in attendance at last Tuesday’s meeting favored the long eastern bypass option. The other members have been notified in writing by DelDOT, according to Hite, and absentee ballots are expected either late this week or next.
A meeting scheduled for June 27 has been canceled and the working group is not expected to meet again, having completed their mission after three years of work.
“We are seeing the light at the end of the tunnel,” Hite said Tuesday. “We are coming to the final stages.”
Working group members last week also voted to support a plan to create a limited-access highway through Selbyville that would only be accessible by ramps — a plan long favored by Selbyville town officials.
That highway — which would be similar to Route 1 north of Dover — would come with a connection with Route 54 to relieve some congestion on the major east-west beach-feeding route. Relieving east-west congestion has been a constant in discussions throughout the process in the “Millsboro-south” area with many expressing concerns that the routes that and serve as emergency escape routes are being ignored while state transportation officials focus on north-south congestion.
Construction on U.S. 113 modifications is still years — and perhaps decades — away, and plans there are meant to solve long-term congestion issues, DelDOT officials have consistently said.
According to Hite, DelDOT will use the working group’s opinion — whether it amounts to a formal recommendation or not — when making its decision to announce a recommended alternative to U.S. 113 this fall. The agency will host public hearings after announcing a favored alternative and plan to select a “preferred” alternative early next year. That would allow DelDOT to begin purchasing land in anticipation of one day building the road.
An eastern bypass option, though, still faces hurdles with the environmental agencies — including the Environmental Protection Agency, the Army Corps of Engineers and the Delaware Department of Natural Resources — which could shoot down any plan they deem too harmful to the environment.
Eastern bypasses also face stringent opposition from members of the local environmental community. Josh Thompson, watershed coordinator for the Center for the Inland Bays who said he could not support an eastern bypass because of the inevitable impacts east of U.S. 113, was the lone dissenter in the vote to support the eastern bypass option last Tuesday.
“From the Center’s standpoint, an east bypass is not an option,” Thompson said at a previous meeting. “It doesn’t take a brain surgeon to see the environmental impacts. I can’t go along with any eastern bypass option. The center cannot back anybody on that decision.”