With the expected General Assembly blessing by June 30, the program will be etched in stone. Let's look at what mischief is afoot. DelDOT expands transportation system capacity, we would be up to our armpits in excrement. Both expansions are made necessary by growth of population, business, industry, housing stock.
Growth increases the load on the sewer system and on the transportation system.
The county's policy is that the additional capacity needed to treat the next increment of growth-induced new load on the sewer system must be in place and operating when that new load appears. And when the additional capacity is pavement rather than transit, it doesn't become used and useful until years later, after construction is completed. Under DelDOT's policy, almost all the capital cost of increasing the transportation system's capacity will be funded by gasoline tax, toll, license fee and farebox collection revenue increases resulting from the added loads on the system. Thus most of these growth-induced revenue increases will be available for other things like tax rate reductions that translate more readily to voter satisfaction than congestion avoidance. More than a decade ago, the public equated congestion increases with a lower quality of life.