The Washington Street Separated Bike Lane project is in its design phase with plans to extend the bike lane through downtown to Delaware Ave.
The city has several separated bike lanes, which are designated lanes separated from traffic by a barrier.
DelDOT Program Manager Paul Moser said his team’s goals includes improving bus stops and making intersections more friendly to pedestrians and cyclists.
“One of the criticisms we get all the time is like, ‘Oh, you're building a bike lane to nowhere,’” Moser said. “Well, it's because there's really not infrastructure on these major roads, and there never has been. So, we're starting at some point, and as that begins to build out and connect to other projects and other projects come online, you start to actually get a viable network of these sort of higher quality separated bike facilities.”
Sen. Lisa Blunt Rochester’s office contributed $2 million in congressionally directed funding to construction costs to the project that has been in the works since 2022.
That will help advance pedestrian- and cyclist-minded infrastructure despite city roads largely prioritizing travel by automobiles.
“In a place like this where you have so many people who live here, who work here, who get around walking, using a scooter or biking – if we can make those modes of travel more comfortable and more accessible to more people, not only are you going to be improving their quality of life, but you could be making transportation in their daily life cheaper for them,” Moser said.
DelDOT’s mission statement includes the lines “every trip, every mode, every dollar, everyone.” Moser said expanding and connecting Wilmington’s bike lanes works toward the “every mode” goal.
The intersection of Concord Ave. and Baynard Blvd. is a focal point of the project because of what Moser calls “weird geometry” and frequent speeding and traffic.
“What we're doing is removing two of the roads coming into there – 25th Street and Harrison Street,” Moser explained. “We're taking those out of the intersection to simplify operations there, make it a little bit safer, do what we can with the traffic signal to try and make the pedestrian crosswalk safer, and then provide a crossing for that bike lane to go across Concord Avenue.”
Moser expects the design phase to be complete around Spring 2027 and to start implementation, the third phase of the project, by late summer 2027 or 2028.
