A new proposal for the final leg of the loop road between Routes 1 and 202 through Hillman Drive shows four changes the developer hopes will satisfy concerns of residents.

Proposals include changing the dedicated turn lanes at Hillman Drive and Route 202, having a right turn only from Dickinson Drive onto Hillman, adding a roundabout on Hillman in front of Evergreen Place and giving Painters Crossing Condominium residents an access to Hillman through a driveway behind an office building in the Chadds Ford Business Campus.

Hillman Drive runs through the business campus, which is owned by The Henderson Group and it’s Henderson that’s willing to build the road at its own expense.

The meeting room at the Chadds Ford Township municipal building was packed with residents wanting to hear the updated proposal during the Feb. 24 Board of Supervisors’ workshop.

There is still no formal plan, but Henderson wants to know from supervisors whether it should continue with the project to generate a fully engineered plan.

One change involves the creation of a 90-foot roundabout on the already existing portion of Hillman Drive at its intersection with Evergreen Place, the lone access point to and from The Estates at Chadds Ford.

Residents of the Estates have expressed concern over the extension because they believe there will be more traffic in front of their development.

“The intersection of Routes 1 and 202 is the busiest intersection in the state,” said resident Sal Faia. “Henderson wants to bring that that traffic to the front of our homes. It’s a matter of safety for people who live here.”

However, traffic engineer Matt Hammond said the roundabout would work “efficiently and safely.”

When asked later how much traffic would be generated in front of Evergreen, Hammond said there needs to be an updated traffic study to get a better projection, but he thinks it would be about 350 to 400 vehicles per hour during peak hours. He said the intersection of 1 and 202 gets 5,000 vehicles per hour.

One of the other changes that concerns residents of the Estates is that traffic from Dickinson Drive would not be allowed to turn left to get to Route 202. Instead, traffic from Dickinson would have to go right on Hillman, go to the roundabout and then turn 360 degrees to get to 202.

Chadds Ford Planning Commission Chairman Craig Huffman brought up another concern, that of traffic backing up, or “queuing” from Hillman, possibly as far back as Dickinson Drive.

There are two lanes of traffic heading to Route 202 on Hillman. Currently, there is a dedicated left turn lane for traffic to go north on 202, and a shared lane for right turns and for those wanting to go straight through toward the Wegmans development.

However, if the lead vehicle in that right hand lane wants to go straight while the light is red, motorists can’t make the right turn on red, which causes a back up.

Hammond said the new idea is to make the right lane a right turn only lane, and make the left lane a shared lane for left turns and straight through traffic.

A fourth proposed change would also bring traffic toward Evergreen, but would address concerns of residents at Painters Crossing Condominiums.

Instead of having access for condominium residents in the vicinity of a condo building, the idea now is to build a driveway from the southern portion of the condos. That driveway would connect with an already existing driveway behind the office building on Hillman at Evergreen Place.

Residents of the condos have always been concerned about traffic coming too close to their 1500 building. The roadway is still 120 feet away — a distance the residents say is too close — but changing the access point from that location to the new one would prevent headlights from pointing directly into a residential building and allow for better buffering between the roadway and the 1500 building, according to engineer Chuck Olivo.

“We can buffer the area better than what was previously proposed,” he said.

Clark Hoffman, president of the Painters Crossing Condominium Association, said the current proposal is a move in the right direction and told supervisors to give Henderson the time needed to fully engineer a plan, adding that Henderson would do better than PennDOT.

PennDOT has previously said that the Hillman Drive extension would be built one way or the other, sooner or later. If PennDOT builds the road, it would be at taxpayers’ expense. Henderson is willing to pay for the project on its dime, if the board approves a final plan.

Former Supervisor Debora Love offered one suggestion that could help residents of the Estates, to change their emergency egress point on Heyburn Road to a regular, everyday point.

“Maybe it’s time for supervisors to look at that possibility,” she said.

Love was on the Board of Supervisors that approved development plans for the Estates. She said the reason for only having ingress and egress on Evergreen is that supervisors at the time listened to residents on Heyburn, Ridge and Summit who didn’t want traffic from the Estates on their streets.

She said that Ridge, Ring and Heyburn roads are more heavily trafficked now because people are using those streets to avoid the intersection of Routes 1 and 202. Extending Hillman Drive to complete the loop system would alleviate the extra traffic there and keep it on a road designed as part of the loop system.

Current Supervisors’ Chairman Frank Murphy said the board could decide during its March 2 meeting whether to reject the proposal or to accept Henderson’s offer of an extension so that the developer could have time to draw up fully engineered plans for the project.

Ross Weiss, the attorney representing Henderson, said his client would appeal the decision if the board nixed the project.

(Photo: Residents pack the Chadds Ford Township municipal building to listen to changes for the proposed Hillman Drive extension, the fourth and final segment of the loop road system around the intersection of Routes 1 and 202.)