The Walkable Chadds Ford project is about building a stronger business climate, not trails, according to Beth Burnam of the Brandywine Conservancy and Museum of Art.
Burnam, the project manager for Walkable Chadds Ford, made the comment while addressing members of the Chadds Ford Business Association during the group’s annual membership meeting, held at Brandywine Prime on Thursday, Jan. 8.
After her presentation, she responded to one question by stressing: “This is not about trails; it’s about the economic health of Chadds Ford Village.”
Yet, walkablility is seen as a feature to that economic viability.
“We need a place where, when visitors from all over the world come and spend the night, they can eat their meals … someplace where people can walk and sit,” she said.
Burnam began her presentation by recalling a conversation she had with the conservancy’s membership director, who had told her of a couple who flew from Australia to spend a long weekend in Chadds Ford to visit the museum, artists’ studios, and the area that gave birth to some of their favorite artists.
The couple booked rooms at the Brandywine River Hotel, she said. They arrived by shuttle from the airport, spent the night, ate breakfast, and then found themselves unable to walk to the museum for fear of crossing Route 1.
“They came from the other side of the world, and they had to have a car sent over from the museum so they could come those last few blocks. That kind of sums it up,” she said.
Burnam said Walkable Chadds Ford is part memory of the past and part hope for the future. She said some people remember when it was possible to walk across Route 1 in the village without fear of being run over.
There was a time when the village drew people who were interested in art, in history and shopping, but now that identity might vanish, becoming nothing more than “a memory seen from the window of a speeding car.”
In the long run, she said, businesses in the area are being hurt because of the speed and the volume of traffic through the area.
“There are fewer shops and fewer places for people to gather,” Burnam said.
Part of the project’s goal, she said, is to make Route 1 and Creek Road each a “complete street,” addressing the needs of everyone, pedestrians as well as motorists. She added that PennDOT agrees with that concept.
However, she doesn’t yet know how those complete streets will come about, whether pavement changes are needed or whether there should be roundabouts.
“We don’t know what the traffic engineers will recommend,” she said.
The project’s Steering Committee is working on a master plan, Burnam told the lunchtime crowd, and that should be ready in June.
There will be more meetings, and she invited CFBA members to attend. The next meeting is 7 p.m., Tuesday, Jan. 13, at the Chadds Ford Township municipal building on Ring Road.
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