House District 5 in New Castle County is located just west of Dupont Highway extending south from Frenchtown Road to Bear Corbitt Road. (If you are not 100% sure whether you live in House District 5, you can search here using your address.) If you live in this district your choice on November 8 to represent you in the Delaware House of Representatives is between the incumbent Representative Kendra Johnson and her challengers Alex Homich and Mark Parks. Using a multiple choice format, we asked these three candidates to share their views on four questions related to traffic safety in Delaware. Mr. Homich and Mr. Parks did not reply but Representative Johnson’s answers are here:
1) In May the 151st Delaware General Assembly voted unanimously to approve the Everyone Gets Home resolution (SCR 94). SCR94 called for reducing traffic fatalities in Delaware to no more than 100 people each year and tasked state agencies to meet that goal by 2025.
Johnson: “Progress in reducing traffic fatalities is possible and elected state officials have an important role to play in holding state agencies accountable for meeting traffic safety goals.“
2) There is significant disagreement among transportation professionals about how limited resources for government traffic safety efforts should be allocated.
Johnson: “All types of crashes need to be addressed but greater resources should be allocated to reducing fatal crash types compared to property damage and injury crashes.”
3) Traffic safety professionals often describe their work in terms of the ‘3 Es’ (education, enforcement and engineering).
Johnson: “All 3 “E”s – education, enforcement and engineering – are indispensable and we need to do more of each in order to make progress in solving Delaware’s traffic safety crisis.”
4) Many of Delaware’s deadliest roads – including Dupont Highway, Coastal Highway, Kirkwood Highway and Pulaski Highway – have become deadlier over time as commercial development along those roads has increased the number of potential conflicts between vehicles, and between vehicles and pedestrians, entering and exiting driveways and changing lanes either to enter or after exiting driveways.
Johnson: “DelDOT should partner with counties to consolidate driveway entrances and exits onto busy, high-speed, multi-lane highways.”