A highway safety project more than a year in the making is now underway.
The installation of a high-tension cable barrier along a 17-mile stretch of Route 1 has begun.
C.R. McLeod is the communications director for Delaware’s Department of Transportation (DelDOT).
“Beginning just before Christmas, the contractor actually got out there and has gotten the project underway - just starting right about at the Duck Creek vicinity of Smyrna, which is almost at the Kent County, New Castle County line there on Route 1. They’ve started to install the foundation for where the median barrier is going to go,” McLeod said.
McLeod says the high-tension cables help prevent vehicles from crossing medians into oncoming traffic.
Five members of a New Jersey family heading home from the beach were killed last July when they were struck by a pickup truck that crossed the median in the same area where the cable barriers are now being installed. 61-year-old Audie Trinidad and his four daughters killed. Trinidad's wife survived the crash.
McLeod says the contractor will be working from their starting point near Smyrna north towards Odessa and Middletown throughout the year to install the 17-miles of median barrier cables.
He says the total cost of the project is just over $8 million. It’s scheduled to be completed by the end of the year.
