Delaware Route 9

Delaware Route 9 is a 58-mile state highway that connects with Delaware Route 1 at the Dover Air Force Base (only just less than a mile south of the southern terminus of the Korean War Veterans Memorial Highway) to Interstate 95 in the City of Wilmington. Much like their U.S. Highway counterparts (Delaware State Routes, with some exceptions, follow the AASHTO system used for numbering U.S. highways), Delaware Route 9 runs east of Delaware Route 1, but unlike the more heavily-traveled DE 1, DE 9 is a designated scenic highway, and has a commercial truck restriction between Dover A.F.B. and Delaware City. Delaware's Coastal Heritage Greenway follows much of Delaware Route 9 south of Wilmington, linking many important sites along the Delaware Bay.

Route description

Dover A.F.B. to Port Penn

DE 9 begins at a surface intersection with DE 1 just south of the toll road terminus (Exit 92) and is in part, a two-lane, unimproved road that goes through most of the marshlands that make up the Delaware Bay watershed. Past the Dover A.F.B. area, DE 9 goes through the towns of Little Creek, where it intersects DE 8, and Leipsic, where it intersects DE 42, crossing several tributaries of the Delaware Bay on either low or high fixed crossings. North of Leipsic, DE 9 passes through the Bombay Hook National Wildlife Refuge which has significant populations of nesting Bald Eagles, taking advantage of the populations of brackish water striped bass and fresh water sunfish that reside in the area.

Past Bombay Hook, the road intersects DE 6 and then crosses over the Smyrna River on a high-level crossing (this was a drawbridge in the past) and then splits off south of Odessa with DE 299. The road, after crossing over several more tidal rivers, then draws up to the headwaters of the Delaware Bay, at Augustine Beach, in which the Salem Nuclear Power Plant in New Jersey can be easily seen. DE 9 then enters the small town of Port Penn, and continues north to Delaware City.

Port Penn to Delaware City

Past Port Penn, DE 9 continues north through the Delaware marshlands on a more modern two lane road with emergency shoulders. For four miles, the road crisscrosses with several swamps and drainage canals until the road crosses the Chesapeake and Delaware Canal on the Reedy Point Bridge. Opened in 1966, the high-level crossing replaced a vertical-lift drawbridge as part of the 1960s canal improvement project that eliminated all locks on the canal as well as the building of both the Summit Bridge (U.S. Route 301 and Delaware Routes 71 and 896) and the Canal Lift Bridge for the Pennsylvania Railroad.

North of the canal itself, the road then crosses over both Fort Dupont and the Governor Bacon Health Center before entering Delaware City itself. Just past the canal, but before Delaware City, DE 9 crosses over the Delaware City Channel, which was before the 1920s, the eastern terminus of the C & D Canal. The Delaware City Channel, which connects the present-day canal with the Delaware River, serves as a marina, but access to the canal is restricted due to the drawbridge, which DE 9 uses, is currently out of service. After going through Delaware City, the road then continues north to the intersection with DE 72 at the Valero (formerly Texaco) Delaware City Oil Refinery, at that point the scenic road and commercial truck restrictions end.

Delaware City to Wilmington

Past DE 72, DE 9, now a "normal" two lane road, continues north through the Valero Oil Refinery complex, with its northern boundaries at the Red Lion Creek bridge. After crossing Red Lion Creek, the road passes the northern training grounds for the Delaware National Guard and then enters New Castle near a tidal retention gate. In New Castle, DE 9 intersects with two state routes, DE 273, which connects New Castle with Rising Sun, Maryland and DE 141, which bypasses Wilmington to the west. DE 9 then, for the first time, becomes a four-lane road and then intersects with I-295 and US 40 at the base of the Delaware Memorial Bridge, I-495 (via DE 9A) at the Port of Wilmington, and then US 13 in Wilmington. DE 9 continues with US 13 into Downtown Wilmington, where, just past the Christina River drawbridge and a low-clearance underpass for Amtrak's Northeast Corridor, US 13 breaks off. DE 9 then continues through the downtown business district on Fourth Street before crossing under I-95 and terminating at DE 2 in the city's Little Italy district.

Bannered routes

Delaware Route 9 Truck is a truck bypass of a stretch of DE 9 south of New Castle. It heads west from DE 9 on Hamburg Road to Tybouts Corner, where it turns north on U.S. Route 13. It heads north along with US 13, with U.S. Route 40 joining in State Road, to Hares Corner, where it turns east onto Delaware Route 273. It follows DE 273 toward New Castle where it returns to DE 9 at the intersection between that route, DE 273 and Delaware Route 141.

References