It will be operating on a timetable which calls for construction to begin in 2002.

The initial meeting, which will include members of the project's parks and recreation committee, will be on Apr. 5, beginning at 6 p.m., in Brandywine High School.

Primary question to be faced will be how the various road schemes fit together. Specifically, the committee will deal with traffic analysis, signal coordination, public transit, environmental assessment and Astra Zeneca site development.

The taskforce also is assigned to fleshing out recommendations of its parks and recreation committee. Basically, they call for development of state land west of Concord Pike for so-called passive recreation and on the east side – not all of which the state owns yet – for expansion of the Rock Manor golf course and installation of other facilities for active recreation.

Way to move ahead on the project was cleared with the decision by Governor Thomas Carper on the basic configuration of the roads and made public jointly with New Castle County Executive Thomas Gordon on Mar. 3.

It is not clear at this point precisely how a compromise agreement to retain a partial intersection where Augustine Cut-off meets Concord Pike will figure into committee's work. Wutka described the agreement – which was not specifically acknowledged in the Carper-Gordon statement – as "a starting point." Except for the basic premise that there will be an intersection, probably about 50 feet or so north of the present one, nothing is absolute at this stage, he said.

Community residents from Wilmington's near north side will be included on the transportation committee, according to Michelle Reardon, project spokeswoman. It was their Triangle Neighborhood Association which successfully lobbied against closing the intersection and rerouting Augustine Cut-off entirely into a 'local road' system.

Wutka said the order in which roads are built is yet to be determined. While it would appear that building what has been described as a 'spur' Route 141 from Powder Mill Road to a new partial bilevel interchange at the site of the present Concord Pike-Foulk Road intersection is the logical first step, he said that is not necessarily so. "It might make more sense to put in the 'local'-road network first," he said.

Whatever is done, Blue Ball planning and construction will have to mesh with a major highway project next door.

Interstate 95 will be rebuilt between Wilmington and the Pennsylvania border, beginning in April. Southbound lanes will be shut for about three months and northbound lanes for the next three.

It is unclear whether there will be a short gap between the closures during the Republican political convention in Philadelphia during July. Delaware tourist and retailing interests hope to attract some spillover business from delegates and their families and I-95 is virtually the only convenient route for them to use.

Present work on Concord Pike, which DelDOT describes as safety improvements, will be halted while the I-95 work is underway. At best, only the southbound lanes of Concord Pike will be finished by then. Construction crews are now working nights in an effort to do that.