South New Castle News

Town Council considers construction of a safe pedestrian pathway from Bethany West to Delaware Route One

The Bethany Beach Town Council will begin a review process of a proposed pedestrian pathway that will create a continuous and connected pedestrian pathway on Collins Street, Kent Avenue and Wellington Parkway. The review process will begin at an informational Public Workshop at 10 AM on Monday, December 12th at the Bethany Beach Town Hall. At the Workshop, drawings of the proposed pathway will be presented to the Council for their review. No vote, or decision of any kind, will be made by the Town Council at the Workshop.

Subsequently, the Town Council will host two Special Meetings on January 13th, one meeting at 3 PM and one meeting at 5 PM, where the Town’s engineer(s) will brief attendees in detail on the proposed pathway. The Town Council will hear public comment at these Special Meetings. 

The 3 PM meeting on January 13th will review plans and hear comment regarding the path on Kent Avenue and Wellington Parkway and the 5 PM meeting on January 13th   will review plans and hear comment on the Collins Street pathway.

The Town Council will not vote at the January 13th Special Meetings but will formally consider the project at their Town Council meeting on January 20th, at 2PM. 

The Town Council is considering the construction of this pathway following recommendations from two separate pedestrian safety studies of community streets. Both studies recognize the Collins corridor as a major pedestrian throughfare and collector street for the community and both studies also recognize that the Collins corridor is not safe for pedestrian traffic. Both recommend the construction of a pedestrian pathway on the street. 

In fact, Collins Street from Kent Avenue to Bethany West is one of the Town’s narrower right of ways, measuring 40 feet in width. The blacktop portion of the right of way is only 20 feet wide, unwalkable and provides no “safe haven” to stand or walk when cars are passing each other. The larger the vehicles driving on Collins, the less safe the street becomes. 

In 2019 the Bethany Beach Town Council voted unanimously to create a 5-foot-wide pathway on the south side of Collins Street. But before the path could be constructed, Covid “happened” and limited the Town’s access to its engineers and the project stalled. During this period the Town worked to address the major shortcomings of its initial plans.  Subsequently, the Town asked our engineers to make the path on Collins safer and more usable by increasing its width from 5 feet to 8 feet and to work with the Delaware Department of Transportation to create a safe pathway from Half Moon Drive to the east side of Delaware Route 1.  

Plans were developed that widened the Collins pathway to 8 feet in width and connected the path to a 10 feet wide path on Kent Avenue, leading to a pedestrian crosswalk with a Rapid Flash Pedestrian Beacon at the intersection of Wellington Parkway and Kent Avenue. The path continues at 5 feet in width onto Wellington Parkway to the intersection of Wellington Parkway and Delaware Route 1, where a newly constructed pedestrian crosswalk and a Rapid Flash Pedestrian Beacon helps to assure safe passage to the east side of Delaware Route 1. 

To be clear: 

The proposed pathway on Collins Street will be 8 feet wide and located on the south side of the street and run from Half Moon Drive to Kent Avenue. This larger pathway would be created by shifting the roadway 3 feet to the north into the Town’s right of way. Please note that the Council has already approved using 5 feet of the Town’s right of way on the south side for a pedestrian pathway. This new proposal only addresses using 3 feet from the north side to enlarge the pathway to make it safer.  

The proposed pathway on Kent Avenue will be 10 feet wide and located on the west side of the street and run from Collins Street to Wellington Parkway.  

The proposed pathway on Wellington Parkway will be 5 feet wide, located on the south side of the road and run the length of the 300 block. 

The proposed pathways on all three streets are entirely in the publicly owned Town right of way.

Every property owner along the route of the proposed pathway will receive a mailing that will provide a detailed drawing of the pathway in front of their home. 

If you are interested in learning more about this proposed project, please plan to attend the meetings listed above. If you are unable to attend, live audio and video of these meetings will be broadcast during the meeting and available online after the meeting at www.townofbethanybeach.com.  Simply click on Government ►Town Council ►Live Audio/Video Recordings.

or

https://www.youtube.com/bethanybeachgov 

If you are unable to attend these meetings and would like to make a comment for the public record, email your comments or concerns to: admin@townofbethanybeach.com. 

The Town Council will review all comments received and all comments will be made part of the public record before the Town Council considers moving forward with the pathway’s construction. 

Please click this link to see the drawings 

https://www.townofbethanybeach.com/DocumentCenter/View/6247/Collins-Street-Pathway-with-drawings

Original source can be found here.