DE 896 is so numbered because of another state's route (PA 896), a shame for such a major road in the state. It's important enough to have held onto US 301 ever since it stole 301 from MD 3 into Baltimore, but now a lot more of 896 is shared, because at Middletown, US 301 changed to head north to US 40 instead of east to US 13.


The southern end of DE 896 at US 13, with oversize TOLL banners for DE 1, one old US 13 shield (pick which one!), and all the signs in a somewhat used condition. The faded blue squares, standard DRBA signage (look up the acronym if you must), were not faded in HNTB's photo, which I had up here until late 2007.


US 40 WB and DE 896 SB, respectively, at the beginning of US 301. That means that DE 896 should not be signed TO US 301, but should just be co-signed with it. It also means that US 40 should not be signed TO US 301, or as US 301, either. Although it would have been nice to bring US 301 back to US 13 somehow, that's not the case here. The rest of the DE 896/US 301 photos are on the US 301 page, linked below.


The blue TOLL sign should just be all-white text. These are northbound.

And southbound.


According to Alex Nitzman, this is just the DelDOT practice he terms "bolt sharing." He says it's not unheard of, but I barely saw any other examples of it in my coverage of the state (this US 202/DE 141 assembly has just one bolt shared). It would be easy to fit SOUTH 896 WEST BUSINESS 2, and just make the last sign hang a little lower, but that would cost another $5 for bolts.

Onto US 301 and 301/896
Old DE 896; Business DE 2 (and DE 273)

To DE 1
Onto US 13
Onto I-95
To DE 2
Back to Delaware Roads
Back to Roads