About the Byway
Delaware Greenways (DGI ) leads and facilitates the public consensus processes that allow communities in Delaware to plan for change, and to carry out projects that will help them ensure the integrity and best use of their community resources in the future (in this case, roads). In the situation of State Route Nine, the Advisory Committee (composed of residents, business persons and other stakeholders) has submitted and been granted funds (2007) by DelDOT and the Federal Highway Administration (FHWA) for the next step, creation of a Corridor Management Plan.
DGI helps communities develop a vision and goals for their roads, and folds specific, strategies for potential improvements into a document - the Corridor Management Plan, or CMP.
Upon acceptance of the plan, funding by FHWA/DelDOT, and naming of the byway as a National Byway (if so desired by the community), a management committee or other entity is formed. It is responsible to the residents, stakeholders and surrounding communities for implementation and review of the progress of all the agreed-on strategies, for a minimum of five years, possibly ten. More projects may develop over the years.
Highlights of the Byway
"Celebrate life on the Delaware Bay and Estuary. Observe watermen bringing the Bay's generous bounty ashore, visit historic towns and travel through scenic stretches of productive farmland and salt marsh. See the truly special landscape of the Mid Atlantic Region and gain an appreciation for the working life of Delaware's farmers, watermen and small-town merchants."
For 53 winding miles from the Colonial Court House in the City of New Castle to the John Dickinson Plantation outside Kitt's Hummock, Delaware's two-lane Route Nine runs in a north and south direction. Its course parallels the western shore of Delaware River and Bay, meandering past a succession of uniquely Delaware landscapes: tidal and non-tidal marshlands, forests, areas of significant wildlife habitat, historic towns and quaint villages, heavy industry, and working farms with cultivated fields of grain, corn, soybeans and potatoes.
Because the Byway is just above mean high water and adjacent to extensive marshland, the road is essentially flat. Along most of its length Route Nine is rural with little or no shoulder and many changes in direction. It is lightly traveled in general, and slow-moving farm vehicles are often encountered early in the mornings during the season.
This region contains the largest area of preserved coastal marshland on the East Coast of the United States, and in several places the traveler sees a landscape unchanged from long before the American Revolution.
The Ramsar Convention (The Convention on Wetlands of International Importance, especially as Waterfowl Habitat) is an international treaty for the conservation and sustainable utilization of wetlands. The Delaware Bay and Estuary was designated a Ramsar Site in 1992, recognition that continues to this day.
The Delaware Estuary is also a nationally recognized Important Bird Place, not just for waterfowl and shorebirds, but for hawks and migratory songbirds as well. The Ramsar Convention on Wetlands describes the importance of the Estuary to birds:
"It is an important staging area for over 90% of the North American populations of several migratory shorebird species. More than one million individuals use the region, making it one of the two most important staging areas on the Atlantic coast of North America. Notable flora and fauna include five species of marine turtles, the endangered eagle Haliaetus leucocephalus, and several rare or endangered plants."
Excellent bird-watching sites can be found at Woodland Beach State Park and Preservation Area and Bombay Hook National Wildlife Refuge. Licensed hunting is available in these places and elsewhere along Route Nine.
Route Nine spans many small guts and creeks, passing through nine watersheds in all. Living off the water and marsh was profitable in the past - muskrat pelts and meat, salt hay, crabs, mussels, oysters and various fish to name a few easily available resources. Even now, the crab fishery and hunting is valued at over $85.5 million per year.
The traveler can eat crabs at restaurants on Leipsic dock - a real down-home crab-eating experience.
As the traveler heads south, scenic swathes of farmland emerge from short tracts of woodland, and the horizon stretches out dotted with brick farmhouses, barns and granaries. A little further on, the small connected, field-side cabins of migrant farm workers alert the traveler to the presence of several large and prosperous potato farms.
A few farmers have experimented with other uses for their land - there is an extensive "borrow" pit just outside Little Creek and a cranberry farm just east of Smyrna on Route 8, for instance.
At the southern end of the Route the traveler encounters Dover Air Force Base in all the modern glory of Air Transport Command, with the Air Mobile Command Museum close to the civilian gate. In wonderful contrast, the John Dickinson Plantation can be found not two miles away, standing at the end of a wooded driveway, with an excellent Visitor's Center, and an existing slave quarters cabin, amongst many treasures both natural and man-made.
