From Staff Reports

ARDEN — Recently revised plans for the widening of I-26 at Exit 44 (U.S. 25) in Fletcher and at Exit 49 (U.S. 64) in Hendersonville were addressed by North Carolina Department of Transportation officials at a public meeting April 16 at Biltmore Church.

The Exit 44 interchange has been redesigned as a diverging diamond — the same design that was built at the Airport Road exit, according to NCDOT officials.

In a diverging diamond, there are traffic lights on either side of an overpass. Cars turning right to enter the highway simply turn right before the light. After the light, through-traffic switches sides to cross the bridge, enabling traffic turning left to enter the highway to simply veer off. 

A light on the other end of the bridge regulates traffic so it may return to the traditional configuration. Exit ramps will fork, allowing traffic to turn right normally or turn left smoothly into the zone where the lanes are switched.

The new design will reduce the number of homes or businesses that must be relocated from 11 to zero, and the number of properties that will be impacted from 41 to 11, according to NCDOT officials.

Meanwhile, the Exit 49 interchange will be changed to what the NCDOT refers to as a “Partial Cloverleaf B with Enhanced Left Turns.”

It will retain two existing loop ramps for exiting the highway, allowing only right turns. Traffic will enter the highway by veering right onto straightforward ramps before the loops. U-turn lanes further away will direct traffic that would have turned left at the interchange.

Both interchanges had earlier been designed as traditional cloverleafs. The new designs will require less land acquisition, disturb less habitat and reduce construction costs, NCDOT officials noted.

Revised plans also better accommodate travel — in kayaks and tubes  — along the French Broad River, while bridges are being replaced. Now each lane travels on a separate bridge. The widened highway will support a single bridge.

During construction, the NCDOT will build causeways in the river. Catchment devices will be hung from the bridge to prevent falling construction material from polluting the river.

Signage will direct river-users to open access points, and rope floats will direct people around construction zones once they are in the river.

The NCDOT and the Federal Highway Administration have agreed that the best solution to the decades-long six-lane/eight-lane debate is a hybrid with six lanes between Exits 44 and 49 and eight lanes northward to the I-40 interchange in Asheville.

DMV officials reportedly are hoping to have the environmental impact statements satisfactorily completed in June, allowing it to request funding for the project in July. 

If all goes according to schedule, the DMV will begin land-acquisition in August. Road widening between I-40 and Exit 40 could start as early as March 2019. 

Widening between N.C. 280 and U.S. 64 could start in June 2019, the DMV noted.