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Brandywine Valley National Scenic Byway Management

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PROTECTING, PRESERVING AND ENHANCING THE BYWAY
The Partnership manages the Byway grounded in its vision, mission and goals.

MISSION
Preserve and enhance this legacy landscape in a manner that is sensitive to the needs of the many private individuals, organizations, and businesses that help shape it.

VISION
Brandywine Valley National Scenic Byway will be the best way to experience the historic, cultural, and scenic qualities of this legacy landscape. Vibrant, pedestrian-friendly villages and urban areas will be an integral part of this landscape. Incentives will be developed to encourage private conservation and preservation actions. The Byway planning effort will guide future public investments for enhancements to the route. A balance between through traffic, local traffic, and tourist traffic will be achieved using traffic calming and context-sensitive highway design that is respectful of pedestrians and bicyclists.

County: New Castle

Length: 12.25 mi

Drive time: Approx. 1 hour

Management Partnership Chairs

Gary Linarducci
President Emeritus – Delaware Greenways
John Danzeisen
Kennett Pike Association

Preservation and Protection Goals

The Brandywine Valley National Scenic Byway’s planning efforts help define future public investments for route enhancements.

Plans strive to achieve a balance between through traffic, local traffic, and tourist traffic using traffic calming and context-sensitive highway design that is respectful of pedestrians and bicyclists.

The Process of Managing Byway Preservation and Protection

Diverse Partnerships

All National Byways, except for those in our National Parks, are led by grass-roots organizations in partnership with government. These organizations take many forms; all involve dedicated volunteers and some level of paid staff.

Brandywine Valley National Scenic Byway is fortunate to have several non-profit organizations responsible for its conservation, preservation and enhancement. These organizations have joined under the umbrella of Brandywine Valley National Scenic Byway Partnership and are responsible for the day-to-day management of Byway affairs.

The permanent governing members of the Partnership are:

• Brandywine Conservancy and Museum of Art
• Brandywine Valley National Scenic Byway-PA
• Centreville Civic Association
• Delaware Greenways, Inc.
• Delaware Museum of Nature and Science
• Delaware Nature Society
• Greater Wilmington Convention and Visitors Bureau
• Hagley Museum and Library
• Kennett Pike Association
• Member of the Business Community
• Winterthur Museum, Garden and Library
• Woodlawn Trustees, Inc.

Delaware Greenways' Role

Delaware Greenways, Inc. provides leadership to assist the Byway Partnership in fulfilling its obligations. The Partnership is led by co-chairs. One of the Co-chairs is selected by the Partnership and the other is held by Delaware Greenways on a permanent basis.

Additional Partners

Our government partners--DelDOT, DNREC, New Castle County, the City of Wilmington, WILMAPCO and the National Park Service—are available for advice and assistance.

The Partnership also coordinates directly with the Byway Management Committees of three neighboring Byways: Red Clay Scenic Byway, Harriet Tubman Underground Railroad Byway, and the Brandywine Valley Nat'l Scenic Byway in Pennsylvania.

Brandywine Valley National Scenic Byway Advisory Board

Created through state legislation, the Brandywine Valley National Scenic Advisory Board serves as an interdisciplinary advisory board to assist policymakers and other stakeholders in ongoing effort to preserve, maintain, and enhance the nationally recognized historic, cultural and scenic qualities of this National Scenic Byway, as well to manage the implementation of the Brandywine Valley Scenic Byway Corridor Management Plan. It also provides a forum for the Partnership to work with its partners in government on issues relating to the Byway. The BVNSB Advisory Board is currently chaired by Secretary of Transportation Nicole Majeski.

Planning Initiatives

Byway Protection Ordinance

In October 2022, New Castle County Council unanimously approved Substitute 1 to Proposed Ordinance 22-071 sponsored by Councilwoman Dee Durham and co-sponsored by Councilmembers Carter, Kilpatrick, and Hollins.

Seven years in the making, the Byways Protection Ordinance embodies the vision set out by the Brandywine Valley National Scenic Byway Partnership in 2015. The Partnership formed a team to pursue the goal of protecting the Brandywine Byway’s most significant features and was represented by 13 representatives from the community. They identified threats to the Byway’s intrinsic qualities and in 2017 sent a proposal entitled the “Brandywine Valley National Scenic Byway Design Guidelines,” to New Castle County officials.

In 2022, the ordinance was broadened to also include the full New Castle County segments of the Harriet Tubman Underground Railroad and Delaware Bayshore Byways.

The Byways Protection Ordinance is a significant conservation ordinance which enhances protection of the six defined intrinsic qualities of New Castle County byways: scenic, historic, archaeological, cultural, natural, and/or recreational.

This innovative new ordinance adopts development standards, protection of scenic viewsheds and the other intrinsic byway qualities, and review procedures for a 660’ swath of land on either side of the four County-recognized byways.

We are proud of New Castle County’s leadership in what this ordinance accomplishes and hope that other jurisdictions will use it as a template to assist in protecting their byways from resource loss and insensitive development.

View the Byway Protection Ordinance.

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