Inside several specialty shops along the mile-and-a-half stretch from UNC Asheville to Beaver Lake, hawkers of shoes, homebrew equipment, crystals and haircuts continue to sell their wares and services, building community amid the slower traffic, and their opinions — like their specialties — vary widely.
“We’ve pretty much been doing cleanups for 50 years without really seeing any real changes,” says Asheville GreenWorks’ operations manager Chelsea Adams. “We go back to the same roads, in the same section of river and creek, every single year and do cleanups over and over and over.”
Area residents noticed when a Norfolk Southern Railway train derailed in Ohio, spewing clouds of toxic gas and later smoke. After all, Norfolk Southern trains pass through Western North Carolina.
Traffic studies, which are required by the state and the county for certain projects, are prepared by engineering firms to forecast additional traffic associated with a development and identify possible problems. But some neighborhood groups question the benefits of research paid for by the very people who stand to benefit from a proposed project.
It’s not your imagination: Commuting in the Asheville area is worse than ever. As skyrocketing housing prices have pushed more city residents into neighboring areas, the number of drivers entering Asheville each day on busy interstates and crowded secondary roads has grown dramatically. “Asheville is still very much the employment center of the region, and […]
“I am so grateful to all the DOT and city of Asheville employees who worked day after day through a pandemic on this project to beautify our town.”
“AVL must put an end to abuse of Asheville’s growing and always changing homeless population by the Asheville Police Department, Department of Transportation and City Hall.”
“So, the paradoxical situation is that we pay taxes to allow destruction of humans’ property, means of surviving and dignity, while we voluntarily pay to improve those circumstances.”
“I would encourage NCDOT to start by building in wildlife-friendly features into the upcoming replacement of bridges in the Pigeon River Gorge, and for us as citizens to advocate with our representatives for future measures to provide bears, elk, deer and other creatures safe passage over or under our ever more busy highways.”
The N.C. Department of Transportation has begun planning for a project intended to improve traffic flow and add facilities for pedestrians and bicyclists along the corridor that connects West Asheville and Biltmore Village. But with neighbors gearing up to oppose what they feared would be a plan to widen both Amboy and Meadow roads to four lanes, a DOT engineer says the agency has already taken that option off the table.
Upgrades to the tangled web of interchanges from the I-26 intersection at Interstate 40 through the gnarled conduit of traffic on the Bowen Bridge have been on the N.C. Department of Transportation’s radar since at least 1989. Along the way, business groups, community members, environmental advocates, designers and elected officials have all weighed in with differing visions about how the project should function and look — and whether it should happen at all.
The Asheville Police Department has released additional data sets at the city’s online open data portal. A new survey ranks Asheville #20 on the list of America’s best retirement destinations. And the NCDOT is planning a public meeting to discuss proposed improvements to an Interstate 40 interchange near Black Mountain.
To alleviate congestion and improve traffic flow, the N.C. Department of Transportation is in the early planning stages for widening Sweeten Creek Road from Rock Hill Road to Hendersonville Road.
Asheville as we know it today was built upon the back of its electric streetcar system, one of the largest networks of its time. As the city finds itself in a growth spurt once again, could its defunct trolley system provide some clues to Asheville’s transit future?
The mayor of Asheville announced the departure of City Manager Gary Jackson at a City Council meeting that also addressed the city’s effort to create a commission focused on racial equity and its opposition to an NCDOT plan to widen Merrimon Avenue.
The city of Asheville is poised to formally express its displeasure with the N.C. Department of Transportation’s plan to widen Merrimon Avenue. At its Feb. 13 meeting, City Council will consider a resolution to reject the DOT’s plan to widen the street and ask staff to work with DOT to come up with alternatives.
To keep cars from slipping and sliding — and crashing and smashing — when weather conditions turn roads icy, the city of Asheville and the N.C. Department of Transportation treat local motorways with salt. While the substance can impact water quality and the health of wildlife, officials say they mostly succeed in balancing environmental and traffic safety concerns.
As development across Buncombe County continues to boom so do concerns about traffic. Xpress takes an in-depth look at who you can turn to for traffic studies, traffic calming and more.
“Thus far, the city has been blind to the obvious — that there’s nothing that can be done to minimize the impact of this flawed project. That’s why N.C. DOT won’t develop and share with the public any human-scale visuals that enable the public to know what this entire thing will look like once built.”
After more than two decades, the NCDOT is getting the ball rolling on the I-26 connector project. And though actual construction is still years away, the next few weeks are the public’s best chance to influence the route of a massive infrastructure project that, regardless of which option is chosen, will cost hundreds of millions of dollars, displace dozens of homes and businesses, and change the face of Asheville.
After more than two decades of discussion, the North Carolina Department of Transportation is getting the ball rolling on the long-debated Interstate 26 Connector project, intended to improve traffic flow and bring the Asheville highway system up to current Interstate standards.
