The right of way was never acquired for this highway, therefore construction this road would have meant cutting a swath along pre-existing communities. This ultimately killed the project. The Newark of today is a cluttered unorganized network of roads. With the ever increasing college population from the growing University of Delaware, the traffic counts continue to increase each semester. Currently the city has a population somewhere in the range of 25,000 that includes the University related population.
Newark roads are still quite cluttered during the summer when most students are away from campus.
With no direct connection between this and DE 273, this route does not offer much relief to cross town traffic heading to and from Maryland. One of the primary culprits of cross town traffic in the city of Newark is the fact that Interstate 95 at the state line carries a toll. Considering that a good portion of the traffic from Maryland is ultimately heading to the interstate, Newark is the big loser here. So this adds to the strain of traffic along these routes that otherwise could be the tolled 3 mile stretch of Interstate 95. If the toll did not exist, traffic counts along DE 4 especially would decrease in my opinion.