We are not done with new trails: Phase II of Lewes-Georgetown Trail breaks ground

Looking west towards the Nassau Bridge (and Georgetown!) on work on Phase II of the Lewes-Georgetown Trail

In September, Delaware opened up the most ambitious and expensive bicycle project in our history: a safe, direct, flat and paved bikeway route between the Wilmington Riverfront and downtown New Castle (including the state’s longest bicycle bridge by far, a football field-long bike bridge spanning the Christina River). But that does NOT mean we are now all done with awesome new trails in Delaware! Because the Delaware Department of Transportation just broke ground on a new one: Phase II of the Lewes-Georgetown Trail.

When complete, the Lewes-Georgetown Trail will be a 10-foot wide paved trail that extends a total of 17 miles all the way from the City of Lewes to Georgetown, creating the single longest trail in Delaware. Governor Jack Markell opened Phase I of the trail – a 1.1-mile section from Gills Neck Road to Savannah Road in Lewes – in October of 2016. Phase II will extend the trail from Savannah Road west to Minos Conaway Road. This extension will also provide a much-needed, and fervently desired, safe, grade-separated crossing of the extremely busy and dangerous Route 1, going under the Nassau Bridge. In doing so, communities west of Route 1 in Sussex County will, for the first time, now have a safe way to bicycle across (i.e. under) Route 1 to get to Lewes.

The Lewes-Georgetown Trail is an ambitious project which would not be possible without the critical support of elected officials. Their leadership has been essential:

The Delaware General Assembly passed Walkable Bikeable Delaware, which directed DelDOT to “create 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.”
Sussex County Council identified the Lewes-Georgetown Trail as a County transportation priority.
In October of 2011, former Governor Markell included the project in his ambitious First State Trails and Pathways Initiative.