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Kirkwood Highway Corridor Master Plan
Aims to Improve Pedestrian, Bike Safety
Kirkwood Highway (State Route 2) is a roadway that runs east- west between Wilmington and Newark in the northern part of New Castle County, DE.
First paved in 1924 and designated SR 2 in 1936, this travel corridor was extended south and west. It eventually connected to Washington D.C., which is why it’s also known as the Capitol Trail. The roadway gradually expanded between the 1940s and the 1960s as the surrounding area grew from a rural landscape to a suburban area. These changes in land use and the roadway led to the creation of an automobile-centric corridor.
The Kirkwood Highway Corridor Master Plan focuses on an 8-mile stretch of the corridor from the City of Wilmington border in the east to Possum Park Road in the west. The study area extends to the Pike Creek area and along Faulkland Road to the north, and generally the CSX Railroad to the south.
This is a highly valuable and heavily commercialized stretch of roadway and recreational and institutional uses, including a satellite campus for Delaware State University. The road also has direct connections to many neighborhoods and multifamily residential complexes.
Bicycle and pedestrian infrastructure improvements were made in some sections, but most of the roadway is best suited for vehicular travel and there are safety concerns for pedestrians and bike riders along much of the corridor. This corridor
carries DART Bus Route 6, which has consistently high ridership despite the challenges pedestrians have in crossing the road and accessing some of the bus stops.
The purpose of this Master Plan is to create an attractive and cohesive plan for the corridor that will integrate land use and transportation to accommodate future economic growth along the corridor. The goal of the study is to provide an environment for the corridor to redevelop as a high-quality and attractive multi- modal corridor with improved safety, walkability, bikeability, local access management, and place-making,
while providing for future mixed- use land development and enhancing existing neighborhood vitality.
This Master Plan is being conducted in partnership with New Castle County Land Use, DelDOT, Delaware Transit Corporation, and key stakeholders. Consensus building and establishment of stakeholder support is a key element in this process. This will be accomplished through a facilitated outreach process that includes public workshops.
For more information or to sign up to receive updates on this study, please visit www.wilmapco.org/kirkwood.
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