By Glenn Rolfe

DAGSBORO — Delaware’s Department of Transportation has earmarked approximately $1.2 billion for road improvements in Sussex County over the next six years.

Of that, about a half-billion dollars targets upgrades along the U.S. 113 corridor, from Milford to Maryland.

“Obviously, with the growth that we are experiencing, there is definitely a need,” said DelDOT Deputy Secretary Shante Hastings.

Some projects in the pipeline are of particular interest to the Indian River School District.
Specifically, two new traffic signals are planned between Georgetown and Millsboro, at U.S. 113’s intersections with Avenue of Honor and Gov. Stockley Road.

Both are in proximity to district construction projects along Patriots Way — the new Howard T. Ennis School, which is currently being built, and the relocated Sussex Central High School, a 2,200-student building that will be part of a multischool campus. Millsboro Middle School will move into the current high school building.

A grade-separated intersection, or overpass, is also in DelDOT’s plans for the Avenue of Honor/U.S. 113/East Piney Road corridor.

Ms. Hastings, in her presentation at Monday’s IRSD school board meeting, said the traffic signal at Avenue of Honor and U.S. 113 “will be temporary until we can get the grade separation in. Those are in design.”

“I don’t have a schedule for them just yet. But those are on the horizon, as well. Basically, from a safety standpoint, as well as a capacity standpoint, we need to add those signals in now to address those issues, while we ultimately have our grade separate,” Ms. Hastings said.

School board president Rodney Layfield thanked Ms. Hastings for her update, which was recently requested by the district.

“I am so happy to hear (about) Gov. Stockley and Avenue of Honor and the lights that are getting done as soon as possible before these projects get started,” he said. “You are so responsive being here and talking about all these intersections because these are concerns that we are focused on, … especially with what we are building, with Howard T. Ennis and Sussex Central High School.”

A traffic-impact study undertaken by the district is in its preliminary stage.

“Traffic counts have been done and submitted and approved, as well as a preliminary traffic impact study has also been submitted, as of Sept. 23,” said Ms. Hastings, noting that DelDOT has 15 days to review that initial report and to suggest revisions or accept it. Once accepted, a consultant will start working on the final TIS.

When the new high school opens and the middle school relocates in 2025, there could be 3,400 students in that complex.

“There might be 3,400 kids, … if that maxed out in 2025 at 2,200 for the high school and like 1,200 for middle. Add in staff, and 3,400 is definitely achievable,” said Joe Booth, IRSD’s supervisor of buildings and grounds. “The traffic-impact study was strongly suggested by Sussex County Council when we got our zoning change.”

The TIS report will detail which intersections would be impacted by increased traffic. Once the projects on Patriots Way are complete, DelDOT will “look at how many are arriving by bus, how many (are) driving themselves or dropped off by parents. That is part of what that traffic analysis does,” Ms. Hastings said.

With this comes cost-sharing.

“I think there is opportunity for all of us to work together earlier on as you are looking at these new schools to see if we can better budget and then better partner on delivering the project,” said Ms. Hastings. “We are bound by our capital program. We have a prioritization process that is in code. We don’t have the ability to slide in a project that wasn’t part of our plan.”

Mr. Layfield said the district is concerned about cost.

“I like the budget partnership you are talking about. But as a school district, we are worried about the cost. What I am hearing is some of your major projects you are already moving forward with and are based upon the needs currently in the community,” he said. “I just want to make sure, as a district, that this budget partnership is not something we are sharing the cost for what is already needed. Then, where what we are having to put a bill on is what we are causing to these existing areas.”

Ms. Hastings explained further: “We have a budget for most of these projects. In some cases, if it is very early on, it’s very preliminary. We have traffic data, and then, we can take the traffic data from your site to say, ‘Here is how much you are generating and what percentage are you sending to this specific intersection?’ It would (be) that portion that you are contributing to the intersection, the percentage of traffic that you would then be responsible (for) in terms of cost.”

Board member Dr. Donald Hattier asked if cost-sharing is built into the budget for the school projects.

“If we are going to be doing cost-sharing, is this something we have built into our proposals in the budget money we have requested from the public?” he said. “In other words, we have ‘X’ millions of dollars we are getting for the buildings. Was there an allowance in there to cost-share? I’m not saying you are wrong. I think it is probably a good idea to do. Is (it) something that we planned in advance for and how would that impact our budget, which is already strained right now because of all the price increases?”

Some funding is budgeted, said Brad Cowen of Richard Y. Johnson & Son Inc., the construction management firm for the IRSD projects.

“In our preliminary budget, we do have some monies in the site work package for what we believe will be some improvements in and around the school — Patriots Way, Avenue of Honor,” he said. “So we made some estimates along (with) that to build some monies into that. I don’t have that exact figure right now, but it is the site work. The number of schools that we do, we know things are going to be needed — sidewalks, walkways, improvements. So we have a pretty good handle on what happens.”