Because of a loss of up to $10 million in expected federal funds, the Delaware Department of Transportation might have to scale back the “local roads” portion of the much-anticipated Route 26 project, DelDOT spokesman Darrel Cole told the Coastal Point this week.
DelDOT might delay the current 2008 local roads start date and pull funds from another project to continue as planned, but no definitive solution is currently available, Cole said.
“We’re looking into the possibility of using funds from other state projects but we don’t have an answer on that yet,” Cole said. “Do we wait to construct it at a later date? Can we find money from other projects or do we just scale back? Those are things we’re looking into.”
Department officials had originally planned, with the help of the federal funding, to expand to 11-foot travel lanes and add 5-foot shoulders on portions of four roads. Expansion was expected on Burbage Road from Route 17 to Windmill Road; on Windmill from Route 26 to Central Avenue; on Central from Windmill to Beaver Dam and on Beaver Dam from Central to Muddy Neck Road.
Expected drainage improvements on those four roads might also be sacrificed because of the loss. DelDOT officials had planned to use federal funds dedicated for the local roads for shoulder and drainage improvements, and land purchases.
Federal funding might still help improve some local intersections because the roads will be used as a detour route during Route 26 expansion, but the roads will not be expanded or improved as originally proposed using federal money, Cole said.
“We were under the assumption for the last several years that we could use federal money for the expansion. We will kind of have to go back to the drawing board,” Cole said. “We are going to do something. The good thing is we are moving forward and not saying that this is the end of the project.”
Federal agencies normally fund 80 percent of the state’s major roadway projects. After talking with federal officials, Cole said that the “local roads” project did not qualify for that funding because the roads involved are not “main roads.”
Tim Droney, interim Millville mayor and long-time area resident, said recently that he considered the local road improvements as important as the mainline project.
“I think it’s quite important,” Droney said. “You can’t have everybody turn off onto a two-lane road. Windmill is not built to handle that.”
The “local roads” project is only one part of the larger mainline plan to expand Route 26 from the Assawoman Canal Bridge to St. George’s Church in Clarksville. The proposed end result would duplicate the road on the Bethany side of the canal, with 11-foot travel lanes, 5-foot shoulders and a 12-foot center left-turn lane. Right-turn lanes and signals would also be added at designated intersections.
DelDOT officials hope to start construction on that project by 2009 but are still working to secure funding. Cole said Tuesday that he doesn’t expect the “local roads” situation to delay the start date for the mainline project.
“We’re still moving forward,” he said.
According to DelDOT Route 26 Project Manager Tom Banez, state officials have been studying the major east-west evacuation route since the early 1970s. In 1974, a group of landowners “shot down” a plan to build a four-lane highway there, he said. A similar plan in the 1980s met similar opposition, Banez added.
Officials first unveiled a version of the current proposal in the mid-1990s. Banez has been working on the Route 26 project since 1995.
“It’s been studied for a long time (and) it’s met with much opposition,” Banez said. “We’ve identified a project that is deliverable and will relieve some congestion. (But) the window of opportunity to do anything is closing because of the rapid development — residential and commercial.”
Rep. Gerald Hocker (R–38th) echoed Banez’s sense of urgency.
“We need to get it started. We don’t need to be behind any more,” he said. “(Route 26) is the evacuation route. That should be scary to everyone.”