Delaware Route 1 is about to undergo a nearly three-year makeover between Frederica and Magnolia.
State officials broke ground on the project Monday morning, which will funnel Route 1 along a raised roadway from Mulberrie Point Road to just south of Barretts Chapel Road, with access roads along side.
The project will take Route 1 over the current Bowers Beach Road intersection and others. The stoplight there has long been a source of backups and delays for through traffic headed to Delaware’s beaches.
Sen. Chris Coons (D) says the upgrade will make the thought of heading to the beach much more appealing to anyone familiar with snarls that can develop along this stretch of road.
“Sitting in long highway backups and traffic congestion in the summer right as you’re heading toward a beach vacation is just a little window into hell that Delawareans get to experience all too often," said Coons. "This will clear a key point of congestion on Route 1 and improve safety and put people to work.”
Sen. Tom Carper (D) also helped shovel dirt Monday morning, criticizing Congress for not raising new revenue to pay for more projects in the most recent highway funding bill approved by the House.
“We have a tradition in this country where those businesses, those people who use our roads, highways, bridges have paid for them. We’ve been doing this for 50 years since Dwight Eisenhower was our president. We did it when Ronald Reagan was our president. We did it when Bill Clinton was our president. We need to do it today,” Carper said.
Breaking through deadlock did happen in Delaware earlier this year. After long and intense negotiations, Republicans and Democrats signed off on a six-year, $330 million infrastructure package in June, helping to bankroll this and several other projects.
DelDOT expects to wrap up this project sometime in 2018.