Smyrna times., 1930-10-15
MAY EXTEND DUAL HIGHWAY
FROM ST.GEORcES TO ODESSA
STATE HIGHWAY DEPART
MENT CONSIDERING PROJECT
20 Popular Has the Dual Highway
Become, 1t May Reach Smyrna
or Dover Within Few Years

The dual highway, now SO pop
ular up state from Wilmington to
st. Georges, the State Highway
Commission is planning to extend
the road from st. Georges to
Odessa out of the budget for next
year. With this in view, surveys
are going forward with the view
Of starting work as early as pos
sible next year with actual con
struction. Eventually the State
Highway Department hopes to
have the dual highway built all
the way down to Smyrna and Do
yer, where at the latter place it
will connect with the two spurs of
extensively used highways down
each side of the State through
lower Kent and Sussex counties.
The data of survey from St.Georg-
es to Odessa will be ready by the
first of the year for the State
Commission to act upon. That
the dual highway from State Road
to st. Georges has been a decided
success is the opinion of w. w.
Mack, chief engineer of the High
way Department. The dual high
way has not been in service a year
but the results in safer driving
conditions and speeding up traffic
convinced Mr.. Mack that a dual
highway is decided improvement
over four-course road such as
exists between Wilmington and
State Road.
Bridge"'Bottle Neck" No Handicap
The fact that the bridge
crossing the Chesapeake and Della
ware canal at St. Georges makes
bottle neck for traffic is not con
sidered any serious handicap, say
officials. One Of the outstanding
features of the roadwork this year
has been the attempt Of the State
highway engineers to eliminate az
much as possible road cracks end
buckling. Engineer Mack believes
that through frequent separations
in the concrete, allowing It 10 ex-
pand in warm weather, will to a
certain degree, do away with the
buckling and cracks. All engin-
eers, including Governor Buck, it
is stated, do not concur in this, SO
that the road work this year has
been much in the line of an exper-
iment looking for solution to The
problem of buckling and cracking
concrete. Most Of the State en-
gagged in road work, however, it is
stated, make room for this expan-
sion Of the concrete in warm
weather.
80 Miles of Road Built This Year
So far this year the Highway
has supervised con-
of so miles of road and
widening operations. Forty-elght
miles have been new road, IS miles
four foot widening operations, and
II miles of Stag and gravel roads.
It has not been possible to do much
with the lateral dirt roads be-
cause of the dry weather, which
made road work of this character
almost impossible. Mr.. Mack
states that despite the increasing
of cars, travel on Della
ware highways has not shown a
normal increase this year. Some
including Virginia, will
show a falling off, of about 10 per
cent in the amount of gasoline TAX
collected. Others will be satisfied
if they come up to last years vol
ume. Delaware, however, will
show an increase of about 10 per
cent over last year. Mr.. Mack at
tended a meeting of the Interna-
tional Road Congress held in
last week. Road
builders from sixty different coun-
tries in the world attended this
conference which was divided
among four speaking sections,
English, German, French and
Spanish.