Community Corner

Goshen Road Not a 'Country Lane' Anymore

The street's dangerous curve was straightened, but its character is out of whack, commissioner says.

No one disagreed that the curve on Goshen Road near Darby-Paoli Road was dangerous and, on multiple occasions, fatal.

So last year the Pennsylvania Department of Transportation started a road straightening project that would eliminate the curve and along with it accidents, injuries and fatalities.

A year and a half later, the project is complete and Goshen Road is reopened. And while the curve has vanished, so has what the local Radnor commissioner says is the character of that part of the road.

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PennDOT “changed the look from a country lane to an urban highway chute,” said Elaine Paul Schaefer, commissioner of Radnor’s Fourth Ward whose property backs up to Goshen Road.

The big issue that she and some others have with the finished product is the loss of vegetation that occurred, Schaefer said.

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Entire trees were felled, and on some part of the road that have seemingly nothing to do with the curve. Part of an old stone wall simply disappeared. Schaefer and others at Radnor Township are in negotiations with PennDOT on how to ameliorate the barren-looking stretch, including planting quick moving ground cover and shade trees.

Schaefer estimates that at least 2,000 cars a day on average travel on Goshen Road, a windy residential road that connects Darby-Paoli Road and Route 252 in the Newtown Square section of the township.

The signed speed limit is 25 miles per hour, but people drive much faster.

“And when it looks like an urban highway chute, people drive like an urban highway shoot,” Schaefer said.

Part of what may make it look that way is a wall mostly covered by a concrete cap and wall. While the plans for the road, including the way, were approved, she said, at the time there was no mention or drawing of the concrete that covers most of the retaining wall.

If nothing else, Schaefer says that PennDOT will work with them to add vegetation. And perhaps, eventually, “we’ll have it back to looking like a country lane,” she said.


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