Ultimately, the Churchman's Marsh area of 95 South in Delaware can be a huge chokepoint. North of 141, there's 3 lanes from 95, 3 lanes from 495, and 4 lanes from 295. That's 10 lanes, that all need to somehow narrow down to 5 lanes on 95 south of 141.
I-495 loses one where it exits onto 295 North, then the left lane ends after meeting up with 95, so we're down to 8 lanes merging into 5. 295 South loses 1 at the 13/40 exit, then another at the 141 exit, then another as it merges with 95, giving us the remaining 5 lanes.
Pulling up DelDOT's traffic count page again: https://deldot.maps.arcgis.com/apps/webappviewer/index.html?id=4f76a1fa5b5c493cb3e1fad44a50dad1 , if you zoom in on the 95/295/495 interchange area, the first thing that's notable is that the counts are for both directions, so roughly divide them in half for a single direction. It shows I-95 AADT of 98k, and I-295 Traffic of 96k just before the merge. Since these appear to be 2 way counts, cut them in half so 95 traffic is roughly 49k and 295 is 48k. Since the counts are probably before the 141 interchange, some traffic will be exiting there before the 95/295 merge. However, DelDOT has allocated 4 thru lanes to 95, and 1 thru lane to 295, after the 95/295 merge, even though traffic counts are fairly similar on both roadways at this point. No wonder why congestion is significantly worse on 295 approaching 95.
Now, granted, these aren't exact figures because of omitted data including ramp data, I don't know the time period of when the counts occurred, and of course don't have the breakdown of weekday vs weekend, summer vs winter, etc. But there's some fairly reasonable numbers here that show that DelDOT is screwing with traffic that is mainly coming from NJ.
This basically sums it up. Even though traffic counts of the combined 95/495 and 295 are roughly equal, all of 295 traffic has to be shrunk down to only one thru lane, whereas the d95/495 traffic gets 4 thru lanes. Ideally, of course, it should be two and three.
And if one were to say that the rightmost lane doesn't count since it forces an exit to DE-1, then the split in traffic should be two and two. Of the four lanes that "survive" leading to the MD border, two of which should be from 295 and two of which should be from 95/495. Based on traffic counts it makes sense. But since DE is paying for it, More of DE traffic is coming from 95/495 so that is the preferred movement, unfortunately.
And things may be even worse if De Mem Bridge becomes all electronic tolling. 4 lanes of bridge traffic (sourced from the combination of NJTP and 295 in NJ, which certainly requires 4 lanes minimum), unadulterated by the toll plaza is forced in a relatively short time into only one thru lane. It simply doesn't work.
IMO, the easiest fix, based on what is currently there, is to simply end the right lane of the combined 95/495 thru lanes, 4->3 as the roadway passes under DE-141. The 4th lane traffic will have to merge left. This will allow 2 lanes of 295 to become the 2 left lanes south of the junction. And the remaining 3 lanes are sourced from 95/495, but all of that traffic has several opportunities to merge with each other to become 3 lanes far more smoothly.
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Topic: Delaware (Read 649906 times)