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It is time to fix and improve Interstates 26 and 240 and Patton Avenue. The quicker the projects can be constructed right the first time without watching costs escalate, the quicker Patton Avenue can be reclaimed for redevelopment, infill and connect downtown with West Asheville.
Do you believe for one moment the ultimate decision won’t be made in a smoky back room? The whole “public hearing” aspect if BS. They have already spent a small fortune on studies and graphics. If the citizens of Asheville disgree, then so what? The State, the DOT and the Governor still seem to want to shove their big plan down everyone’s throats.
The biggest irritation I have with how all of this has been approached, and protested, is that the Bowen Bridge fix and the I-40/26/240 interchange fixes need to be decoupled from the 8-lane/6-lane West Asheville question. We need action on the first two issues much sooner rather than later, and arguing about how many lanes are needed through West Asheville is holding up absolutely critical work on the other two.
The above illustration does nothing to help this, either.
Let the NCDOT do their own thing. Their designs were pretty good and 8 lanes are needed. An extra lane on both sides is not the end of the world; it’s just a few feet across.
What we do need insist on is more greenways like the one they proposed from Haywood Rd. I would like a greenway south of I-40 from Brevard Rd to Airport Rd paralleling I-26. Also, the new Blue Ridge Parkway bridges over Brevard Rd and I-26 need to be build with stone work or an appearance thereof.
CHCollins – you are a voice of reason in the wilderness of reactionary emotionalism.
Not too many of you around anymore which is kinda depressing.
The photo accompanying the post is “inflammatory” at best, because this isn’t Los Angeles and none of the proposed solutions have looked anything like this. Propaganda aside, it is worth hearing what is being proposed, but not with the idea that all change is bad. There are plenty of faults with the current traffic pattern — rear-end collisions on the Bowen Bridge, dangerous crossovers from 19-North trying to exit onto Montford-Haywood exit on I-240… the roadways were not well-designed to begin with, so why defend doing nothing? It is important but it isn’t a call for torches and pitchforks.