Residents weigh in on the future of transportation in WNC

It’s never too soon to start thinking about the long-term future of transportation in Western North Carolina.

That’s the idea behind Elevate 2050, a blueprint for the region’s transportation network now being developed by the French Broad River Metropolitan Planning Organization (MPO). Still in its early stages, the federally mandated plan is expected to be completed in September 2025.

“Right now, we’re just trying to lay the groundwork,” says Tristan Winkler, director of the organization, which covers all of Henderson County, most of Buncombe County and parts of Haywood and Madison counties.

The federal government requires urbanized areas with populations over 50,000 to develop transportation plans every four to five years, Winkler says. Projects that don’t make the list cannot get federal funding.

As part of the planning process, French Broad MPO officials are looking for ideas from area residents.

 It last released a plan in September 2020. “What are the goals that we should be trying to achieve for our regional transportation network? What’s the overall vision for a successful transportation network in 2050?”

So far, more than 400 people have filled out an online “Vision/Goals Survey,” which gauges public opinion on transportation priorities. And about 60 people attended three public meetings in Asheville, Hendersonville and Mars Hill last month.

The message is clear. People want to see more greenways, sidewalks and other paths for pedestrians and bicyclists. Those who attended also want officials to develop a network that relies less on cars and more on public transit.

“The area is growing, and we know from experience that some of these communities without planning ended up with disastrous transportation systems,” says Swannanona conservationist RJ Taylor, who attended a public meeting Aug. 6 at the North Asheville Public Library. Taylor is a volunteer with Connect Buncombe, a nonprofit that supports building greenways in the county. 

“We want to see more walkability because there are a lot of dangerous roads in the area,” he adds.

Sidewalk safety

People who attended the North Asheville Public Library public meeting were asked to write on sticky notes ideas for what they would like to see in the final version of Elevate 2050.

Some of the answers addressed needs in specific geographic areas. “SIDEWALKS!! in Swannanoa and Eastern Buncombe County,” one person wrote. “Pedestrian infrastructure is almost nonexistent.” Other notes called for safer pedestrian infrastructure along Swannanoa River Road and sidewalks connecting the business hubs between Sweeten Creek and Hendersonville roads.

Others took a big-picture approach when jotting down ideas. “No road or street should be eligible for auto traffic unless it is safely navigable by an 8-year-old AND 80-year-old without a car,” one person suggested. Another called for more road diets like the one that converted Merrimon Avenue from a four-lane roadway to a three-lane road with a center turn lane and bike paths on each side.

“More frequent buses! More places to bike!” one person wrote. “Want less traffic? Stop mandating car dependency,” added another.

Those sentiments are shared by Zach Rouhana, who moved to Asheville in July and attended the North Asheville public meeting.

“I am from New York, and the transit is phenomenal there,” he says. “There is huge potential down here for great public transportation.”

Additionally, Rouhana would like to see Asheville become more bike-friendly, especially for parents with kids who want to avoid heavily trafficked roads.

“Nobody thinks it’s OK to bike in the city because it’s not safe,” he says. “If you bike, you feel like a lone wolf.”

David Nutter, chairman of Connect Buncombe’s advocacy and partnership committee, attended the North Asheville meeting. He says the group is encouraging Buncombe County voters to approve an $80 million general obligation bond package that will be on the Nov. 5 ballot; $20 million of that total would be used on transportation needs, including street resurfacing, new sidewalks, greenways and multiuse paths.

Connect Buncombe’s top 10 greenway priorities for the City of Asheville has the Wilma Dykeman Greenway Extension at the top. The project would add a 1.3-mile section extending the Wilma Dykeman Greenway near Hill Street to Pearson Bridge Road.

Nutter says the extension is the centerpiece of the area’s greenway future because it would create a northern connection in the River Arts District Transportation Improvement Project trail network.

Regional transit system?

Joe Stanis is an active user on Strong Towns Asheville on the social media site Discord. Strong Towns is a national community-led group pushing for connected communities and safer transportation, among other things.

As a UNC Asheville student who lives in Mars Hill, Stanis would like to see a centrally funded regional public transportation authority connecting local cities. As things stand now, the French Broad MPO has five transit providers: Asheville Rides Transit, Mountain Mobility in Buncombe County, Apple Country Public Transit in Henderson County, Haywood County Transit and the Madison County Transportation Authority.

“Having all of that under one roof would be very helpful,” Stanis says. “I think starting the process of getting that going would be a really good priority for the future of transportation regionally.”

Stanis says he has never traveled on a Madison County Transportation Authority vehicle. The Marshall-based agency is a demand-response, curb-to-curb transit system.

“I don’t really know how it works,” he admits. “Most people think it’s just for old people that need to go to the doctor. Under a central authority, that would help a lot with branding and being able to show people, ‘Hey, we’re able to get you to Asheville for whatever you need.’”

The feasibility of a regional system was studied in 2021 by the French Broad MPO, which concluded “regional service would improve mobility options for the most disadvantaged and provide alternatives to access jobs, health, education and other services or destinations.”

Stanis recognizes that combining different agencies that value their autonomy may prove difficult.

“I have a feeling that might be a point of conflict for getting everyone on board for this,” he says. “But I don’t care about your territory. What is the most efficient thing for the community?”

Making plans

During that planning process, the public expressed similar interest in networks that served cars but also bicyclists, pedestrians, motorcycles and more. “And then there were other people who said we really need to focus on reducing congestion and moving freight through our region more efficiently.”

Elevate 2050 will be written by McAdams, a Raleigh-based transportation planning consulting firm.

“After identifying our transportation needs, we’ll be prioritizing them,” Winkler explains. “Because a big part of this plan is that we can’t just assume that we’re going to have an infinite amount of money. We have to have a plan that has a somewhat realistic idea of how to finance whatever projects come out of this.”

Any project that is not on the list is ineligible for federal funds, he says.

The MPO relies on state funding forecasts in its planning.  And the projections this time around look a lot more bleak than in 2019 and 2020.

“When we were doing this five years ago, the transportation funding picture looked fairly rosy. But over the last few years, we have seen funding challenge after funding challenge, whether that was the revenue losses associated with the COVID-19 pandemic or the escalation in costs that we’ve seen for infrastructure projects.”

He points to the example of the Interstate-26 Connector project, which was recently put under contract for $1.1 billion, a 20% increase over earlier estimates of $915 million.

“That’s a huge change,” he says. “Accounting for the fact that the cost of building these kinds of projects has changed significantly is going to be a big part of this plan, especially when it comes to setting our priorities. We’re going have to make priorities about what kind of fixes we need to make and where do we really address our problems?”