Delaware Awards Contract to Finish Long-Awaited Wilmington-New Castle Greenway
Rendering of the football-field long bike bridge that will complete the Wilmington-New Castle Greenway
Decades after it was first proposed, Delaware has signed a contract with a local construction firm to complete the long-awaited Wilmington-New Castle Greenway.
It’s a project of superlatives: It’s the state’s biggest-ever cycling network improvement project. And it will include a football-field long bike bridge spanning the Christina River which will be, by far, the longest bike bridge ever built in Delaware.
When construction wraps up in 2018, the people of Delaware will gain a remarkable new asset: a safe, direct, paved, flat and nearly uninterrupted non-motorized seven-mile travel route between the Wilmington Riverfront and downtown New Castle. The Wilmington Riverfront and Market street, with its many businesses, restaurants, residences, train station, movie theater, minor league baseball stadium and art scene will be safely and easily accessible by cyclists – of every age and ability – from the suburban communities to the south of Wilmington and from New Castle. Going in the other direction, the historic colonial capitol of Delaware, now the headquarters of Delaware’s only national historical park, will be similarly accessible to people cycling from Wilmington.
The project will also fix the missing link that will enable a new (and much better) route in Delaware for the East Coast Greenway (a developing 3,000 miles long, urban trail linking Calais, Maine, at the Canadian border, with Key West, Florida).
First proposed way back in the 1990s, Delawareans have been waiting for the Wilmington-New Castle Greenway for a long time. Bike Delaware wrote its very first article on the project in 2010. In 2011, eight civic and business groups came together in a joint call for the project to move forward.
The final phase of the Wilmington-New Castle Greenway – including a bridge over the Christina River – will be Delaware’s biggest cycling improvement project.
In 2011, New Castle County had been active with the project but any prospect for completing the final – and most expensive – phase seemed remote. But in May of 2011 the project received a huge boost when the Delaware General Assembly unanimously passed Walkable Bikeable Delaware, which put the state’s legislature on record calling for the creation of
“multi-use paths for pedestrian and bicycle user travel within and between cities and towns in Delaware on independent right-of-way outside of the right-of-way of existing roadways;”
Just weeks after the passage of this policy statement by the Delaware General Assembly, the Delaware Economic and Financial Advisory Council announced improved revenue projections for the state budget. Governor Jack Markell seized on the opportunity presented by the combination of the state’s improving budget picture and the legislature’s passage of Walkable Bikeable Delaware to propose unprecedented new state investments in cycling and trails: $2 million in new funding to complete the Castle Trail (extending from Delaware City to Chesapeake City along the C&D Canal) and $5 million in new funding for state bike routes. And then in October of 2011 he followed up with the announcement of the First State Trails and Pathways Initiative, which included the Wilmington-New Castle Greenway.
Although the contract to finish the Wilmington-New Castle Greenway is a state contract, nearly all of the money for this project is being provided by the U.S. through the federal government’s Congestion Mitigation and Air Quality Program, with the cooperation and support of WILMAPCO (the Metropolitan Planning Organization covering New Castle County) and the Federal Highway Administration.
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• Eight civic and business groups call for completion of Industrial Track
• Wilmington – to – New Castle Industrial Track Greenway
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• News Journal: “State agencies draw up a dream trail for cyclists”
• Wilmington-New Castle Greenway: It’s the red route
• New Castle Industrial Track – Phase3 Feasibility Study (DelDOT)
• Archive of all past Bike Delaware articles on Industrial Track
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• 1st Ever CMAQ-Funded Bike Project in Delaware History
• Coalition wins key support for rail trail
DelDOT First State Trails and Pathways Plan Markell Wilmington-New Castle Greenway
42 Responses
Jim Dudley woo hoo!!
Kirsten Costango
Kirsten Costango
Does this include the section around the rt 13/295 interchange ? This is great news and will be a fantastic ride
Absolutely. All that will get opened up in coordination with the completion of the bridge over the Christina River.
Weeks? Finally!!!
Wish PA would do more.
Can’t wait!
Great
Need to finish paving the Castle trail connecting to Maryland
Harold Shoupe, should be very, very soon…
Maureen Protokowicz Donahue!!
So much great stuff happening in Delaware for Cyclists. No hoping a direct route from Newark to Wilmington will be next.
Michael Wolf: Stay tuned to this space….
No Doubt about it. Thanks!
Nikki J Melkun !!!!
Mimi MacPherson Shari Lovell Galgano
Awesome!
I’ve always wished there was a bike path to run/bike from Wilmington to Hockessin,Newark and Landenberg area. There is so much rush hour traffic from wilmington to hockessin and newark. I would bike these routes and have tried before but its too much traffic too close to where you are biking. I see a few brave people making the bike trip but it is a scary route in between the old Hercules Country Club and Hockessin. The whole off road trail system is amazing in newark/pike creek but there are very few ways to get to them unless you are driving. Pike Creek has the paved bike trails, if they were connected to Wilmington, Newark and Hockessin that would open up a ton of new transportation routes. Also Hercules CC and that area seems to have alot of area right next to one of the busiest stretches of road in New Castle County. It seems there could be a way to get a path along 48 and 41 or even through Yorklyn and Greenville along side 82 or partially using the old Wilmington Western Railroad. Have any of those options been proposed?
Steve Lafferty, a Wilmington to Newark Pathway is a top priority of Bike Delaware. We have been advocating for this project to get started for several years. There is an upcoming meeting at WILMAPCO on Tuesday, October 4, after which we hope we will have something concrete to report. Stay tuned to this space.
Finish the Mike Castle Trail to Maryland. Please!!!!!!
Mary Ellen Kopp, very soon!
Don’t forget the Dover area when improving biking in Delaware!
Shari Lovell Galgano, do you live in or near Dover?
Yes I do, but I ride all over our state, Mike Castle and Gordon’s Pond are 2 of my favs.
Shari Lovell Galgano , ICYMI: http://www.bikede.org/2016/06/23/these-spectacular-trails/
Shari Lovell Galgano, did you know that there is both a Dover bicycling committee (part of Dover City government) and a working group developing an updated Kent County Bike Plan? The Dover committee meets at 5PM so that people who work can attend.
Bike Delaware I did not know that. Thank you for the info!
Wow, a bridge exclusively for bikes! Delaware is becoming downright hip and forward thinking, who’d have thought? Thanks for your advocacy – this will have so many environmental and health benefits for generations to come.
Michael Goetz, thank you for the very kind words! These projects don’t happen “naturally” (at least not yet, anyway). We work really hard to help make them happen. AND we are also working hard to put in place reforms for that it will be easier for them to happen in the future. This article explains a critical part of that strategy: http://www.bikede.org/2015/04/28/half-a-million-people/
Yet another piece of the regional bikeway puzzle falls into place!
Great job I wish Maryland and Cecil county would do the same thing
This is GREAT news! Thanks Bike Delaware for your part in making this happen.
Summers in mid 1970s we would drive up to Wilmington from Smyrna, bicycle on the back. After work I would ride Route 9 back stopping at my mother’s house on the way. Getting out of the Wilmington area was not the best part of the trip. But the bridge at Delaware City was better than St Georges.
This is thrilling. We have come so far in the thirty years that I have lived in Delaware. I chose to stay here, and I chose to live in Newark because it was bicycle friendly. But it is SO MUCH friendlier now, thanks to the hard work of groups like Bike DE, Newark BIcycle Project, Newark Bicycling Committee, and a plethora of bicycle committees in cities throughout Delaware. What a great place to live!
Nadia Mosa
Awesome!
A place to try out the new bike!
Sweet !!
Ella
[…] Delaware: Contract Awarded for Construction of Major Greenway Project Fantastic news for the ECG in Delaware – the state awarded a construction contract for completing the Wilmington – New Castle Greenway! The $22 million project will include a bridge across the Christina River that will be a centerpiece to the trail. When completed, this greenway will connect the ECG between New Castle and Wilmington. Thank you so much to our partners in Delaware who have worked hard to support this key investment in non-motorized infrastructure. Read more in this article by Bike Delaware. […]
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