Bike trail linking Lewes and Rehoboth
The final leg of a trail linking Lewes and Rehoboth Beach opened last week after nearly two decades of work among private landowners and state and local officials.
The six-mile Junction and Breakwater Trail, named after the 1800s railroad line, will be open to pedestrians and cyclists. Motorized vehicles and horses are not permitted.
"It will be great to get off Del. 1," said Anthony Aglio, the state's bike and pedestrian coordinator, who tried out a section of the trail last week.
State officials envision the trail as an alternative for people who want to walk or ride bikes between the two cities. They also hope to get the hundreds of summer workers who currently commute by bike on the busy Route 1 highway to use the trail as a safer option.
A handful of bicyclists are struck every year while riding on Route 1, including a 28-year-old man who was hit in April while riding in the wrong direction. A previous analysis of accidents along the highway found that more than 10 percent of the state's 350 bicycle accidents took place on Route 1.
Officials also see the trail as another destination for Delaware's growing ecotourism market. The trail, combined with a small loop at Gordons Pond and a more lengthy trail at Cape Henlopen State Park, takes visitors and residents through a varied coastal habitat that includes sweeping vistas of the ocean and Cape Henlopen's Great Dune, as well as the inland lake-like setting at Gordons Pond, and now a wooded and wetland habitat.
Still, said John Hughes, secretary of the state Department of Natural Resources and Environmental Control, "another way to get to Lewes is important."
Hughes, a Rehoboth Beach resident, is an avid cyclist. He said he knows firsthand the perils of Route 1.
"I'm a guy who's been taken off Route 1 once in a helicopter and twice in an ambulance" after cycling mishaps, Hughes said. "It is a safety issue."
Hughes, along with area cycling groups and state lawmakers past and present, pushed hard to establish an off-road link between the two towns.
He praised Paul Townsend and his family, who own the land used to make the final link, for working with state and local officials to get the job done.
"This is temporary," Townsend said, pointing to the crushed stone entrance to the trail off Gills Neck Road.
Once through the main part of the Hawkeye development, the trail links into the old railroad right-of-way and will take pedestrians and cyclists through an area that includes wetlands and woodlands with opportunities to see a wide variety of birds and wildlife.
There are old railroad bridges to cross and a working farm to pass by. There is no public parking at the Lewes end of the trail, so state officials anticipate that local residents and visitors staying in the city will be the likely users.
There are two parking areas farther south: one at Wolfe Neck Road and the other off Glade Road in the Rehoboth Outlets Seaside.
"The vision of a pedestrian link between Lewes and Rehoboth Beach has been around since the 1970s," Hughes said.
The project has been years in the making and has been controversial at times. Initially, state officials proposed extending the trail through a state park. But ecological concerns blocked that plan.
Then, state officials hoped to work with area landowners and use a railroad right of way. The right-of-way belonged to the private landowners. A decade ago -- armed with millions in state open space money -- environmental officials began buying up land adjacent to Cape Henlopen State Park. When done, they had acquired an additional 1,396 acres -- including a narrow ribbon where the first 3.6-mile section of the trail was built. The cost was just over $20 million.
All the while, they negotiated with the Townsend family and their development partners, the Lingo family, to complete the final link.
source: delmarvanow.com
