House District 25 includes the southwestern part of Newark (including the University of Delaware main campus) and then extends west to the Maryland border and south past I-95 to include the suburban communities in the vicinity of Iron Hill Park. (If you are not 100% sure whether you live in House District 25, you can search here using your address.) If you live in this district your choice on November 8 to represent you in the Delaware House of Representatives is between Lynn Mey and Cindy Romer. Using a multiple choice format, we asked these two candidates to share their views on four questions related to traffic safety in Delaware. Ms. Mey did not respond but Ms. Romer’s answers are here:
1) In May the 151st Delaware General Assembly voted unanimously to approve the Everyone Gets Home resolution (SCR 94). SCR94 called for reducing traffic fatalities in Delaware to no more than 100 people each year and tasked state agencies to meet that goal by 2025.
Romer: “Traffic safety should be DelDOT’s top priority. If traffic safety goals are unmet, DelDOT’s capital program should be reoriented and reprioritized in order to meet those goals.”
2) There is significant disagreement among transportation professionals about how limited resources for government traffic safety efforts should be allocated.
Romer: “All types of crashes need to be addressed but greater resources should be allocated to reducing fatal crash types compared to property damage and injury crashes.”
3) Traffic safety professionals often describe their work in terms of the ‘3 Es’ (education, enforcement and engineering).
Romer: “All 3 “E”s – education, enforcement and engineering – are indispensable and we need to do more of each in order to make progress in solving Delaware’s traffic safety crisis.”
4) Many of Delaware’s deadliest roads – including Dupont Highway, Coastal Highway, Kirkwood Highway and Pulaski Highway – have become deadlier over time as commercial development along those roads has increased the number of potential conflicts between vehicles, and between vehicles and pedestrians, entering and exiting driveways and changing lanes either to enter or after exiting driveways.
Romer: “DelDOT should use all of its available authority to consolidate driveway entrances and exits onto busy, high-speed, multi-lane highways.”
5) Is there anything else about your record as an elected official, your experience or your views that you think is relevant to improving traffic safety in Delaware for the people you wish to represent in the 152nd General Assembly?
Romer: “I answered the questions to the best of my current knowledge. I appreciate what Bike Delaware does and would like to be more informed on these issues. I would appreciate an opportunity to meet and discuss the issues in greater detail and see how I can best use my position to make Delaware roads safer for all.”