People live in cities with great recurring cultural traditions. Austin, Texas, has SXSW; Miami Beach, Fla., celebrates Art Basel; and for Asheville, we have Interstate 26. This week is your time to do your part as a citizen or leader to show up and get your eyes full of the N.C. Department of Transportation’s future plans for Asheville. It is our local sport!
In 2008, NCDOT proposed the idea of putting the highway over Patton Avenue, and the community successfully articulated the negative consequences. In 2010, they agreed to keep the highway under Patton, which became the final design in 2018. NCDOT has now backtracked to the 2008 highway over Patton design, betraying our community and our good-faith collaborations. This redesign was not part of the Environmental Impact Statement (EIS) process. This will irreparably harm our community environmentally, aesthetically and economically.
NCDOT may have a right to change things, but they can’t ignore the federal law that stipulates that we should have reasonable alternatives and knowledge of the impacts in an EIS. Impacts of this redesign have not been evaluated, period. This will have tremendous negative impacts on our community for the next century and will significantly affect our ability to navigate in our own city.
Thankfully, we are still in the “design” part of a “design-build” contract. Let’s correct these errors while they are on paper, not concrete. Measure twice, cut once. Their design is full of wasteful fat.
For instance, I-26 balloons between Hillcrest and Montford! Why? Patton Avenue’s lanes are equal to a 60 mph design speed highway. Why? Let’s not forget that they are proposing an enormous concrete highway deck over Patton. The good news is that that’s gonna be one heck of a homeless camp!
In general, NCDOT’s own trip projections would be satisfied by something like the four-lane Salem Parkway in Winston-Salem. They are also cutting off Hanover Street and Burton Street because of bloated highway width. There are numerous examples of cost-cutting that can happen that will make it faster, cheaper and meet our community goals. The word count limit stops me here.
Join me at the Renaissance Asheville Downtown Hotel on Thursday, April 24, 4-7 p.m. Let NCDOT and our leaders know that we deserve better.
If it doesn’t happen with you, it will happen to you!
— Joe Minicozzi
Owner, Urban3
Co-founder, Asheville Design Center
Asheville
