From Staff Reports

The Metropolitan Planning Organization on June 28 voted 15-3 to expedite the widening of I-240 in West Asheville. 

One new lane would be added in each direction. 

The MPO is comprised of representatives who advise on transportation planning in the region.

Design engineers at the North Carolina Department of Transportation and members of Asheville City Council continue a three-decade struggle over building capacity in local highways. DOT officials have long charged the roads require widening to reduce congestion and accidents; their focus is on facilitating transportation.

 Members of council — primarily Julie Mayfield and Gwen Wisler, who are both avid cyclists — support more of a Complete Streets approach. 

On behalf of council, they continue to promote a design that would convert Patton Avenue into a multimodal corridor flanked by quaint, well-landscaped businesses. The plan would also facilitate walking downtown from West Asheville.

The widening is known as Section A of the DOT’s planned I-26 Connector project. Work on the improvements is scheduled to begin in 2027.

Early challengers to the improvements argued, “If you build it, they will come;” meaning wider roads invite more automobile traffic. And this was not the direction government leaders should be taking in light of climate concerns. 

Detractors, however, have countered that traffic backups, such as the weekly Sunday afternoon fiasco, cause a lot of idling, which, they say, is not good for the environment, either.

County Chair Brownie Newman, who formerly advocated against the widening, is now supporting expedition. He and County Commissioner Jasmine Beach-Ferrara argued expediting the project did not necessarily close opportunities to persuade the DOT to adopt a quality design. Moving this project’s timeframe up to coincide with work on Sections B and C, however, would introduce efficiencies in project management, saving money and resources.

 The Asheville Area Chamber of Commerce’s Vice President for Public Policy Corey Atkins cautioned that failure to expedite the project could subject the project to yet another round of traffic studies. The DOT is currently revising its plans, and new data could lead engineers to definitively conclude the road must be eight lanes, instead of the six for which they have settled under public pressure. 

Atkins said completing scheduled work on both ends of the project — Sections B and C — would only create a bottleneck until 2027, when construction would again cause delays.

 A point-scale used by the DOT that prioritizes projects in terms of congestion and the number of traffic incidents ranked Sections B and C higher than Section A. Projects are also weighted in terms of the priorities of local leadership. The MPO vote will raise the score for the widening project.

 The project is estimated to cost $600-$800 million, depending on the final design selected. Work on crossing the French Broad River and streamlining interchanges for I-40, I-26, and I-240 in West Asheville was already scheduled to begin in 2020.