For more than 32 years, I have called Ridge Road home. I have watched what was once a quiet rural roadway serving local families and agricultural properties become increasingly congested, dangerous, and overwhelmed by cut-through traffic. Excessive speeding, poor sight distances, and growing traffic volumes are no longer occasional concerns — they are daily realities for those of us who live here.
That is why I am struggling to understand why Chadds Ford Township has invested significant taxpayer resources in studying traffic concerns on other local roads while repeatedly declining to commission an independent traffic study of Ridge Road and its feeder roads, Ring Road, and Heyburn Road.
According to the recently commissioned Pennoni study, Oakland Road carries 5,200 vehicles per day, Webb Road 1,600, and Harvey Road 700. The study also documented zero to 3 crashes in 2024 at key intersections along those corridors. Those concerns are real, and the residents affected deserve attention.
But so do we.
Unlike many local roads, Ridge Road is characterized by sharp curves, steep grades, blind spots, and limited sight distances. Residents, school buses, emergency vehicles, cyclists, and pedestrians all navigate these challenging conditions every day. Yet despite years of complaints and documented concerns, our road and its feeders have never received the same level of scrutiny.
Now, a proposed commercial development at Route 202 and Ridge Road threatens to make matters worse. The developer’s own Traffic Impact Study projects that daily traffic on Ridge Road will increase from approximately 2,700 vehicles to 3,538 vehicles—an increase of more than 30 percent.
Even more troubling, the Traffic Impact Study largely focused on intersections along Route 202 and failed to analyze nearby intersections on Ridge Road, Ring Road, Heyburn Road, and Route 1, where traffic diversions and cut-through traffic are most likely to occur. In other words, the study does not fully evaluate the roads that residents use every day.
This is not about opposing studies on Oakland, Webb, or Harvey Roads. Every neighborhood deserves safe roads and responsible planning. The question is why Ridge Road residents have been denied the same consideration.
Traffic safety should not depend on geography or politics. If Chadds Ford Township believes traffic safety is important enough to study elsewhere, then it is important enough to study on Ridge Road.
Before any major development moves forward, Township officials should commission an independent traffic and safety study of Ridge Road and its surrounding network. Residents deserve decisions based on complete data—not assumptions.
The question is simple: If other roads are worthy of study, why isn’t Ridge Road?
The residents who live here deserve an answer.
Ellen Spoehr
Chadds Ford Township
