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Bridging I-95 to Connect the Community
Wilmington has joined a growing number of cities that are exploring ways to reconnect neighborhoods and provide new public spaces by creating caps over urban highways. These structures are being used to create green spaces, plazas, and cultural amenities that can also reconnect separated neighborhoods, while allowing residents to walk and bike more safely and comfortably.
This study began in November 2021 with the first Advisory Committee (AC) meeting held at the Trinity Episcopal Church on Adams Street, and included a walking tour of the study area, which stretches from Delaware Avenue to 6th Street, between Adams and Jackson Streets. This was the first opportunity for our project team (DelDOT, the Delaware Transit Corporation, Wilmington, WILMAPCO, Hargreaves Jones, and JMT) to meet with community
leaders and residents to discuss the challenges and opportunities in the area.
WILMAPCO followed up this meeting with a virtual AC meeting on November 2 to widen the outreach to include residents who were unable to attend or were more comfortable meeting online. Input from the AC was used as the basis to develop a vision for the project, and to help our team prepare for the upcoming community visioning workshop, held in-person on November 17, followed by an online workshop on January 12, 2022.
The project team took the comments from the visioning process and developed initial ideas for the cap. A second AC meeting was held on March 8 to bring these ideas back to the community for their comment and review and to help inform a third public workshop, which was held in-person on April 19.
Workshop attendees scrutinized initial design ideas and added their thoughts to the concepts as well as proposing concepts of their own.
The next steps include bringing the AC back together to review the revised concepts, followed by a public workshop that will allow community members to have additional input. This input will give the project team the direction needed which the community will select their preferred one.
The final report will detail all aspects of the study, including bicycle, pedestrian, and transit access to the new space from the adjacent neighborhoods, and will enable the State of Delaware to move forward with this historic project.
For more information and to sign up for project updates, please visit www.wilmapco.org/i95cap.
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