Milton council to bring back all-way stops resolution
The idea of creating all-way stops at two busy intersections in Milton is set to get another hearing.
For the town council meeting at 6:30 p.m., Monday, May 6, at Milton library, council is set to debate resolutions creating all-way stops at Wharton/Chestnut/Atlantic streets and Federal/Wharton/Mulberry streets. It’s almost exactly one year since council declined to move forward with the plans.
Mayor John Collier said bringing back plans for all-way stops at the two intersections came after recent discussions with the Delaware Department of Transportation, which maintains Chestnut and Federal streets. He said he encouraged the original sponsor of the plan, Councilwoman Randi Meredith, to consider presenting the idea again.
"Last time, they were defeated based on the lack of a formal traffic engineering study,” Collier said. “It was revealed at an April 10 question-and-answer session with DelDOT that Delaware Code will also consider an investigation sufficient to make the request. An investigation has been done; DelDOT provided a significant portion of the data that indicates significant improvement on seven of the eight legs of the intersections.”
Plans for all-way stops divided council in late 2022/early 2023. Originally, plans for all-way stops at the intersections were part of larger improvement projects that added new crosswalks, curb cuts and handicapped-accessible ramps. The projects were funded by a $310,000 grant from Sussex County, part of a distribution of excess transfer taxes the county gave back to municipalities.
Plans to improve the intersection at Chestnut/Wharton/Atlantic were discussed by town officials for years, while changes to the intersection of Federal/Mulberry/Wharton were recommended by DelDOT as part of its traffic-impact study related to the Granary at Draper Farm development.
In October 2022, council voted unanimously to move forward with the improvements at Chestnut/Wharton/Atlantic, which included all-way stops. Improvements to Mulberry/Federal/Wharton passed 6-1, with Councilman Fred Harvey the only no vote.
DelDOT asked the council to submit its request in the form of a resolution, which passed for both projects in March 2023. However, the next month, when council needed to ratify the resolutions to make them official, council was deadlocked 3-3, with then-Councilwoman Annette Babich absent. The all-way stop portion of the project was the main bone of contention.
That was a problem for the town, as Town Manager Kristy Rogers had already spent $50,000 of the county funds on preliminary work for the improvements. To avoid losing the county funding, council stripped the all-way stop provisions out of the project and moved forward with just intersection improvements, which were completed in late 2023.
