At its May 23 meeting, Council voted unanimously to grant  a so-called level-of-service waiver, which allows a major development project to proceed even though the expected result will be failure to meet all the intersection-congestion standards in the development code. If planned highway improvements are made, the Astra Zeneca project apparently misses three of a possible 40.

With a waiver in hand, knowledgeable observers agree, a favorable recommendation from the Planning Board and Council's subsequent approval of Astra Zeneca's bid to alter deed restrictions on the property along Concord Pike between Powder Mill Road and the Blue Ball intersection become virtual formalities.

The board has scheduled a public hearing for June 6, beginning at 7 p.m. in the Redding building in downtown Wilmington, to receive comments concerning both the deed changes and technical review of the development plan. Nothing more than token opposition, if that, is expected.

Astra Zeneca had sought postponements of hearings in February, March and May after Planning Board chairman Victor Singer made it clear the advisory body was bound by the Unified Development Code not to sanction the project absent firm assurances that the much-discussed $74.5 million worth of Blue Ball-area highway building would be completed in time to handle additional traffic generated by enlargement of both Astra Zeneca and Du Pont Co. Experimental Station workforces as well as anticipated normal traffic growth during the next 10 years.

Astra Zeneca refused to divide its project into phases with those following the initial one pegged to the pace of highway construction. It cited a necessity for business planning to proceed with a degree of certainty and state and county government commitments to expedite the entire corporate expansion in return for its occurring in Delaware.

That impasse was declared resolved in early May by a General Assembly resolution – albeit nonbinding – committing Delaware Department of Transportation to meeting its construction timetable in the area and assuring that capital funds will be made available for it to do so.

With that, Astra Zeneca on May 11 signed a transportation management agreement providing for several steps to reduce company-generated rush hour traffic. Like an earlier Du Pont agreement, it calls for 15% of the workforce to arrive and leave each day in vehicles with more than one occupant.

On the same day, the county Department of Land Use, citing the Assembly resolution and the transportation management agreement, issued a recommendation that Astra Zeneca be relieved from having to comply with the code's level-of-service requirements.

The resolution to accomplish that was circulated among Council members, in hopes of full-house sponsorship, on May 15. It was placed on Council's agenda published on May 20.

Second District Councilman Robert Weiner took on primary sponsorship of the resolution in his capacity as chairman of Council's land use committee. It is normal practice for the primary sponsor to be the member in whose district the proposed project lies. Astra Zeneca is situated along the eastern edge of Richard Abbott's Third District. Weiner's district abuts that on the other side of Concord Pike.

Weiner said also that it is appropriate for him to be lead sponsor because he "did all the work" on guiding Astra Zeneca's bid through the process and because he was one of four Council members who signed the 1999 economic development agreement with Astra Zeneca promising expedited support for the expansion.

He said further delay in advancing the project would be a breach of faith between government and a major private business. "If it wasn't for [the promises] they wouldn't have come here but would have gone to Pennsylvania," he said.

Astra Zeneca is the U.S.-North American subsidiary of a British company of the same name formed last year through the merger of two European pharmaceutical companies. Zeneca, corporate descendent of Stuart Pharmaceutical and the old Atlas Powder Co., was based in Brandywine Hundred; Astra was in suburban Philadelphia.

As it turned out, the only hitch in the smooth flow to Council's level-of-service resolution and the path forward from there was a dispute between Weiner and Abbott over how the Tyler McConnell Bridge fits into the equation. The span is in Abbott's district.

Weiner maintains that expansion of the bridge, which carries Delaware 141 over the Brandywine, from two to four lanes is essential to keep traffic flowing through that corridor. As a result, he included language which could be interpreted as endorsing Delaware Department of Transportation's commitment of $73.2 million of "capacity improvements" to the bridge.

Abbott has long maintained that enlarging the bridge, long a controversial idea, is not necessary. He said he was unable to sign on as a resolution co-sponsor because Weiner "completely and unreasonably refused to work on compromise language" regarding the matter.

Abbott added, however, that his breaking ranks in that regard "is not of any significance." He ended up voting in favor of granting the waiver.

Complicating the bridge issue is an allegedly political move by the outgoing administration of Governor Thomas Carper to prevent any major controversy in that regard before the November elections, at which Carper is seeking election to the U.S. Senate. Located in the heart of the historical and cultural Brandywine Valley, the future of the bridge has become an emotional issue for a large number of more-influential-than-average Delawareans.

DelDOT has declared that resumption of public consideration of the project is to begin, probably in June, with work on a 'build-no build' decision.

DelDOT chief engineer Raymond Harbeson told Delaforum that the department is obligated by federal and state public-involvement requirements to "verify the need for the project" and denied that any political impetus is driving the timetable. He said expansion of the bridge remains in the department's long-range capital improvements program.

According to Council's level-of-service waiver resolution, three of 12 heavily impacted intersections in the vicinity of Astra Zeneca's site will be 'in failure' – that is, overcongested – in 2010 if all the planned road improvements, including the McConnell bridge, are not completed.

The intersections are not specified in the resolution, but are identified in the Land Use recommendation Delaforum has obtained as Concord Pike and Sharpley Road, Concord Pike and Fairfax Boulevard, and the driveway accessing the Fairfax Shopping Center opposite Astra Zeneca's Concord Pike entranceway. Anticipated maximum time for a vehicle to get through the Sharpley Road intersection during the morning rush in 2010 is 100 seconds. Times at the other two are 119 seconds and 118 seconds, respectively, both during the afternoon rush.

The recommendation states, that because DelDOT estimates that additional Astra Zeneca employees will contribute only between 3% and 17% of the additional traffic at the 40 intersections studied and that only three will 'fail', approval of the waiver is accepted.

"This land development will have no significant negative traffic impact within the study area so long as the proposed Blue Ball roadway plan is constructed," the recommendation said.