Delaware Roads - DE 404/US 9

DE 404 and DE 404/US 9



Not US, DE. There's one more of these, on DE 1, but that's at the end of the very long US 9 multiplex (long by east-west Delaware highway standards). This one I believe is west of DE 36. This became my error message for broken links - after all, among all 404 shields, what better than one representing a non-existent route?


This route does exist, and was regular DE 404 in Bridgeville until quite recently - the current route around town wasn't even built until 1997, and even then was Alternate 404 for two years. I can say with a fair degree of confidence that this DE 404 shield predates by many years the Business banner above it.


Another old shield in the same place, Business 404 WB/Business 13 NB (the sign in the back isn't an error, it's a trailblazer).


US 9/DE 404 westbound in Georgetown, into and all the way around The Circle (which is really a square, but keep that between us), where the two routes split. DE 404 was tired of masquerading as a nonexistent route, and lets US 9 masquerade as an actual route - DE 9 and US 9 mark the original route duplication in the state, now joined by US 202 and DE 202. However, unlike the 202's, the 9's aren't related in any way, making this gaffe more inexcusable. While we're in the circle, enjoy the different styles of narrow shields on the one-piece signs, along with an off-color Bay Bridge sign and the modernized Cape May Ferry sign (the original, or at least the second-most recent version, can be found on DE 896, or on a few of my New Jersey pages). All the other Bay Bridge pentagons I've seen are white on green, so this is probably a much older version, and also is probably the last of its kind! (Incidentally, the only reason DE 404 exists along useless DE 18 and US 9 duplexes is so that there's one route to follow from DE 1 and the shore to that bridge and points west.)

Onto US 9 alone

Back to Delaware Roads
Back to Roads