Delaware beach season starts with traffic jams

Last Sunday, an unexpected line of vehicles near Milford crept slowly along Del. 1 northbound. With engines idling, drivers’ frustration grew as they faced 20-minute delays.

A week before Memorial Day weekend, the start of beach season, the highway wasn’t supposed to be congested, an ominous indicator for the upcoming summer.

“Probably from 11 o’clock until I don’t know how late, it was bumper to bumper,” said Skip Webb, owner of Webb LH & Sons Market, which lies along the congested segment between Milford and Dover.

“And that’s what is going to be happening in the coming weeks, it will be like that until August,” he said.

Each summer, Sussex County becomes a seashore destination for people from New York to Virginia. And while the Delaware Department of Transportation has invested millions of dollars rebuilding highways and transit centers in the area, gridlock is expected to remain on the largely rural highways leading to the coast during peak beach driving times.

But it doesn't deter people from coming to the beach resorts. The sand, sun, restaurants and outlets continue to draw tens of thousands of vacationers each weekend. Some strategize ways around the traffic; others put up with it.

"I've been going to the beach since I was 9 years old, and I know there's a lot more traffic, but it's worth it," said Diane Granger Badagliacco, a Wilmington mother who owns a home in Lewes. "People get frustrated because everybody's in such a hurry, but to me when you're down at the beach, it's supposed to be relaxing."

Still, Badagliacco acknowledges that she tries to avoid the heaviest traffic during weekend trips, leaving Wilmington for Lewes during the early afternoon on Friday.  

While relaxing for vacationers, the beach also can be profitable for area shops, and the traffic is a sign of the region’s economic success, say business leaders. The economic benefits can reverberate beyond local establishments.

Some beach-going drivers who pass by the Southern Grill in Ellendale, which sits 20 miles inland, eventually stop and park, said Stacie Morgan, a cashier.

“We’ve still got the regular in-towners and out-of-owners,” she said. “They come by and they don’t see us at first, and they come by again and say, ‘We just drove right by here.’ But then they keep coming back.”

Still, congestion might become a concern and businesses should keep themselves apprised, said Betsy Reamer, executive director of the Lewes Chamber of Commerce.

It is not a uniquely Delaware problem, she said.

“Yes, there’s concern but DelDOT really does a good job of monitoring the traffic … of trying to control the lights along the coastal route here so that the traffic is moving,” she said.

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During busy summer weekends, DelDOT’s traffic guru, Gene Donaldson, observes the movement of vehicles along state highways from a control center in Smyrna. He adjusts the length of red lights as monitors show cars backing up at intersections.

For southbound traffic headed to Rehoboth Beach, Lewes and Dewey, congestion often builds at the Del. 1 intersection with Del. 16, he said.

“You get through the Milford area, and you’re pretty good until you get down to 16,” he said. “Most of the time you’ll get through in one cycle at 16. Sometimes, I may be metering it there.”

For northbound drivers heading away from those beach communities, congestion often bottles up at a chokepoint north of Milford, he said. That was the case on Sunday after a cluster of drivers who had left an Ocean City, Maryland, car show, had taken U.S. 113 to its confluence with Del. 1, the state’s primary north-south artery.

The convergence of Del. 1 and U.S. 113 frequently creates slowdowns in the northbound direction, Donaldson said. Simple math explains it, he said, as three lanes merge into two.

Drivers “had their first taste of heavy traffic for the season last week,” he said.

To avoid congestion, motorists should not waste time searching for an undiscovered short cut, Donaldson said. Cutting over to U.S. 13 to avoid the Milford bottleneck, for example, or negotiating local back roads will make the commute only longer, he said.

“If there was a magic alternate route, somebody would be on it,” he said.

Instead, drivers should travel during off-peak times. Northern Delaware vacationers headed to the beach should leave before 3 p.m. Friday or travel after 9 p.m., Donaldson said.

“If you can start coming through the Dover area by 3, 4 in the afternoon, you’ll be pretty good,” he said.

For the return trip – which for most will be on Monday – drivers should wait until late afternoon, Donaldson said, after 4 p.m.

“If you plan accordingly, you’ll have less delay,” he said.

Those times are the best predictions based on historical travel data, but a crash along Del. 1 could cause a snag even during free-flowing times, Donaldson said. The News Journal traffic page provides real-time traffic conditions from data collected by DelDOT.

Officials from AAA predict the number of Delaware’s Memorial Day weekend travelers to increase about 3 percent from a year ago, totaling approximately 97,111 vehicle travelers.

The spike in holiday travel also is expected nationally, according to AAA, as gasoline prices remain low, compared with a 10-year rolling average. AAA’s projections are based on economic forecasting conducted by IHS Markit, a London-based business-research firm.

“The expected spike in Memorial Day travel mirrors the positive growth seen throughout the travel industry this year,” said Bill Sutherland, AAA senior vice president. “Higher confidence has led to more consumer spending, and many Americans are choosing to allocate their extra money on travel.”

Reamer said any prediction is weather dependent. While in past years, most vacationers had booked lodging reservations weeks or months ahead, the trend is shifting, she said.

“It looks like the forecast for the weekend is pretty good, so I’m hoping we’ll get some good numbers,” she said.

State prepares

If AAA’s projections are accurate, fewer and fewer windows of free-flowing traffic are expected on highways leading to the coast and at the beaches themselves.

In preparation for those tens of thousands of Memorial Day vacationers, Rehoboth Beach city offices will be open Saturday. DelDOT will suspend construction-related lane closures on highways to the beach.

DART, Delaware’s transit agency, this month began to operate its beach bus service connecting Lewes, Bethany Beach and other communities. To access the buses, drivers can park in a newly expanded $4.6 million Lewes Transit Center, at 349 Coastal Highway.

Additionally, Express bus service from Wilmington to Rehoboth Beach will begin Friday, with stops in Middletown and Dover.

Reamer said bus options appeal to transit-friendly vacationers from New York City and Washington.

“We’re getting more and more people coming down from the New York metropolitan area,” she said. “They want to take the train to Wilmington and then get on the bus.

For the majority who do drive, however, Reamer echoed Donaldson’s recommendation.

“If you can at all possibly come early and stay late, then you’re just going to hit less traffic,” she said.

Contact Karl Baker atkbaker@delawareonline.com or (302) 324-2329. Follow him on Twitter @kbaker6.