East Asheville Sidewalks
Whose side are you on?
East Asheville residents give City Council an earful over sidewalks
by Jake Frankel in Mountain Xpress 09/07/2010
In a passionate display of concern for pedestrian safety, more than 250 residents packed a special City Council meeting called to address the lack of sidewalks in east Asheville. About 150 more were turned away from the Aug. 31 session after fire marshals deemed Groce United Methodist Church’s Asbury Hall to have reached full capacity.
Chris Pelly, president of the Haw Creek Community Association, led things off, noting: "It's clear by the turnout here that the lack of sidewalks affects everybody. We want to help City Council find a solution."
Pelly’s video presentation highlighted studies showing that the east Asheville neighborhoods on both sides of Tunnel Road collectively contain only 3 percent of the city’s sidewalks. “This doesn’t mean people are not walking along Tunnel Road — it just means they are not walking safely,” he pointed out.
The video also documented the ongoing efforts of the East Asheville Sidewalk Initiative, a group Pelly helped pull together several months ago to win the support of city leaders for their cause. More than 100 residents turned out for the group’s April "sidewalk summit," attracting the attention of City Council members as well as city and state transportation staffers. At that gathering, city Transportation Director Ken Putnam urged the group to draft a list prioritizing the areas most in need of improvements (see “Pedestrian Predicaments,” April 28 Xpress).
The residents immediately took that advice to heart, quickly zeroing in on a 0.9-mile stretch of Tunnel Road between the Asheville Buncombe Community Christian Ministry's Veterans Restoration Quarters and the VA Medical Center. Later in the summit, ABCCM staffer Stan Vincent explained that some 200 residents, many of them disabled, walk between the Restoration Quarters and the VA hospital daily. Many residents say the stretch — dubbed the "goat trail" because the vets have worn a path along the steep hillsides bordering the road — is dangerous.
In May, more than 200 marchers walked the path in another attempt to focus local officials’ attention on the problem. Among them was Restoration Quarters resident Darryl Sparrow, who described the trail as treacherously narrow and rocky.
"You could slip in the creek or the road,” he noted. “Hopefully it won’t take someone getting hurt or killed before they do something; I’ve had close calls myself.”
Council members sympathetic; budget tight
Judging by Council members’ reactions to Pelly’s presentation, the Sidewalk Initiative’s well-publicized efforts appear to have had the intended effect.
"We know we're going to have to dig deeper to make a bigger impact on these issues than we have in the past," Vice Mayor Brownie Newman said to huge applause. "I think we're very creative in finding funding to make things happen. But we need to be investing more than $50,000 a year in sidewalks."
City staff and Council members went on to discuss a wide variety of potential funding options, including a bond referendum and re-allocating the roughly $14 million that Council member Cecil Bothwell said the city is considering spending on a Biltmore Avenue parking deck.
"That's a huge decision that's coming up this fall," noted Bothwell. "That $14 million is going to come out of transit money that could be used for sidewalks. It could be used for bike lanes. It could be used for greenways. It could be used for a shuttle system downtown. There's lots of ways to use that money besides putting more cars downtown…
"I think sidewalks would be a better use of that money," he concluded to thunderous applause.
Council member Gordon Smith stressed that the sidewalk issue will be a priority at the Oct. 8 infrastructure retreat, when city leaders will discuss a wide range of potential capital-improvement projects.
"I'm really looking forward to Oct. 8, because it's going to be rubber-hitting-the-road time, and we're going to have to find some solutions for you," said Smith. "I want you to know that I think everyone up here on this Council wants to be able to provide you with walkable, bikeable, livable neighborhoods."
In the meantime, several Council members also urged residents to appeal to county, state and federal officials for help in funding the needed improvements.
"Almost every solution takes our county's participation, our state Legislature's participation, our federal government's participation," said Council member Esther Manheimer. "All of those things are at issue. … It's pretty complex."
Bothwell concurred, noting that in North Carolina, "State government controls a lot of what cities can do. It's an election year: Talk to the candidates running for state office in your voting district and ask them about these issues…
“Because unless the state helps us out here, we can't go it alone in this city. You can't pay for the sidewalks yourself; you can't get 200 miles of sidewalks out of your dime."
Scenes from the “Sidewalks for Safety” March
by Jake Frankel in Mountain Xpress 05/22/2010
On Saturday, May 22, over 200 people marched Tunnel Road’s “Goat Trail” in a demonstration intended to rally city leaders to build more sidewalks in east Asheville. The march highlighted a mile-long stretch of worn grass and rocky paths along the road where many veterans walk each day between the Veterans Restoration Quarters and the VA Medical Center.
Chanting “we need sidewalks” as they marched, the group was led by several veterans who said their daily walk between the ABCCM quarters and the hospital isn’t safe.
“I don’t like walking on the trail because it’s too narrow and there’s rocks. You could slip in the creek or the road,” said Darryl Sparrow, who moved to the quarters from Bryson City six months ago. “Hopefully it won’t take someone getting hurt or killed before they do something. I’ve had close calls myself.”
Billy Hopkins, who also lives at the quarters, agreed.
“The grass is slippery, and there’s snakes,” he said. “It’s a safety issue. The DOT needs to give it a close look.”
Getting the NC DOT to give the road a closer look is also the hope of organizers from local homeowners associations, who have been lobbying city officials to make building sidewalks in the area a higher priority. At their “Sidewalk Summit” in April, the Sidewalks for Safety group released studies showing that east Asheville has only 7 percent of the city’s sidewalks, while north Asheville has 42 percent, West Asheville has 28 percent, and south Asheville has 23 percent.
“28805 has always been the red hen compared to West Asheville and north Asheville,” said Soma Merlin, an east Asheville resident and member the of Bull Mountain Home Owners Association. “But we’re hip here in the 805 too, and it’s inspiring to see this many people out here. I hope this helps east Asheville have a sense of community.”
Sparrow also said he was inspired by the turnout, noting that new sidewalks wouldn’t just benefit veterans. “This is something for the whole community—all the neighborhoods around here could use more sidewalks.”
For further background on the march and to see a video of the “Goat Trail,” check out Xpress’ May 21 blog post.
Pedestrian Predicaments
East Asheville residents hold "sidewalk summit"
by Jake Frankel in Mountain Xpress Vol. 16 / Iss. 40 on 04/28/2010
East Asheville residents came out in force April 19 for what organizers dubbed a "sidewalk summit," making the case for pedestrian improvements in their neighborhoods. Over the course of the 90-minute meeting at Charles C. Bell Elementary School, several of the roughly 100 attendees voiced a wide range of questions and concerns to officials from the city's Planning and Transportation departments, the state Department of Transportation, and Asheville City Council members.
Chris Pelly, president of the Haw Creek Community Association, narrated a PowerPoint presentation showing that east Asheville has only 7 percent of the city's sidewalks. According to Pelly, north Asheville has 42 percent, West Asheville has 28 percent, and south Asheville has 23 percent.
Planning and Development Director Judy Daniel blamed the disparity largely on history. "Most of the neighborhoods west and north of the city are much older than where you are," she explained. "The houses are closer together. They were built at a time when most people walked or took a streetcar or took a bus. After World War II, that changed a lot — most subdivisions were not built with sidewalks for about the next 40 years."
Despite Daniel's assurances that east Asheville is now "high up on the priority list," however, residents continued to press her and other officials concerning specific plans to make improvements.
Daniel and Transportation Director Ken Putnam spelled out some of the challenges to making large-scale improvements, including rights-of-way authority in subdivisions, N.C. DOT jurisdiction, the placement of utilities and funding. Putnam also encouraged residents to identify specific "hot spots" — small stretches that they feel are most in need of sidewalks.
As the meeting continued, consensus grew for bumping up several sections of Tunnel Road east of Interstate 240 on the priority list. A 0.9-mile stretch between the Asheville Buncombe Community Christian Ministry's Veterans Restoration Quarters at 1329 Tunnel Road and the VA Medical Center at 1100 Tunnel Road generated the most passionate response.
Stan Vincent, who works at the vets' quarters, explained that about 200 residents — many of them disabled — walk daily between the facility and the VA hospital. Bull Mountain Road resident Kim Engel said she regularly sees them narrowly avoiding traffic.
"Seeing the vets running across the street as I'm driving my children to school is horrifying," said Engel.
Haw Creek resident Susan Bicknell agreed. "It's a miracle nobody got killed there this winter," she said. "People had to step out into the road because it was too icy and [there was] too much snow. People would be out there on that curve and on that hill, and it was really very dangerous."
Although the officials on hand made no promises, several expressed sympathy and offered guidance on how to proceed.
DOT District Engineer Jeff Moore asked the group to send him a list of their priorities and said he'd look into them, while Putnam suggested that residents work on getting a bond issue passed to fund the needed improvements.
Council member Cecil Bothwell, branding himself and fellow Council member Gordon Smith "champions for sidewalks," advised concerned residents to write to the other Council members and tell them how badly Tunnel Road needs sidewalks. "Squeaky wheels do get greased," he observed.
Toward the end of the meeting, organizers from the Beverly Hills, Haw Creek, Parkway Forest, Redwood Forest and View Pointe homeowners associations collected e-mail addresses and began laying plans to draft an official sidewalk priority list.
East Asheville resident Vickie Gaddy made it clear to the officials in attendance that they would be hearing from them again. "We're shakers and movers," she declared. "We mean business."
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Haw Creek Pictures
Haw Creek Photos taken by Ed Seel
Haw Creek snapshots taken by community members