photo credit: City of Asheville project page

October 2, 2023

This week, we sent the letter below to the members of Asheville City Council expressing our support for the College / Patton Project in downtown Asheville because we believe multi-modal transportation investments make denser residential development work best for our communities. You can read more about the project on the city’s website here.

Dear  Asheville City Council, 

          City Manager Debra Campbell,

          Director of Transportation, Ken Putnam

          Assistant Director of Transportation, Jessica Morriss 

          Members of the City of Asheville’s Multimodal Transportation Commission

I write today on behalf of MountainTrue and Neighbors for More Neighbors WNC asking you to support the College Street and Patton Avenue redesign project.

We took to heart Council member Mosley’s reflection of concern and even anger on behalf of the Black community regarding bike lanes during the August 22 council discussion on this project. The prospect of supporting what feels to some members of our community like “white encroachment in Black neighborhoods” is not a position we take lightly. While we believe that this redesign project would increase safety for all travelers through our downtown—pedestrians, cyclists, and drivers alike—we also take seriously the prospect that such a change may make some members of our community feel even less welcome or included, especially those Council member Mosley spoke on behalf of who are “most vulnerable among us.” 

Additionally, we take seriously the concerns of downtown business owners who are currently beset by a host of challenges and stressors and who feel like the timing of this project is not right. For those owners in particular who have invested in and committed to downtown Asheville even since the years when downtown was nearly deserted and sorely neglected, we regret that the timing of this project feels like a threat rather than a support.

While we do not take these concerns lightly, Neighbors for More Neighbors WNC advocates for more attainable housing that is built in places and at a scale that most benefits the health of our natural environment. We support attainable housing in and near our city centers because that is an efficient use of infrastructure, it decreases our overall carbon footprint, and also because we want our downtowns to be vibrant, thriving, inclusive places that all people in our community both can and want to access and enjoy. We believe that investments in infrastructure that make downtowns more pedestrian friendly, rather than vehicle oriented, do pay off by activating our city center in a personal way and on a human scale. Bike lanes are a part of that landscape not just because they benefit bicyclists, but also because the less car-centric we make our downtown, the more people-centered it becomes. Complete street projects both enable vehicle access in addition to providing safer options for other road users, and, ultimately, we believe that complete streets in our city center will benefit downtown businesses by making downtown a place that residents will want to spend more time and money in.  

When vulnerable members of our community and business owners feel that complete street projects like College/Patton go against their interests, we take time to step back and question our assumptions. It is true that the most vocal and visible champions for bicycle infrastructure in our community are white. It is also true that the challenges of both implementing this project and then adjusting to the new road design would be most immediately felt by the business owners whose businesses are located within the project footprint. Yet it is also frequently true that unwanted or even feared changes, once experienced, prove to be appealing and beneficial in unexpected ways. 

We respect our city staff and traffic engineers who have studied this project and responded to concerns along the way. They have improved the design by increasing loading zone space and decreasing impacts to drivers by moving the bike lanes to the left side of traffic, instead of the right. They have consulted with and received support from emergency responders in our community. And they have compared vehicular traffic patterns to other streets in town to demonstrate that this new design would not create the delays or congestion that some opponents of this project fear. We trust their expert analysis and their process, which has built upon multiple studies and plans that have recommended projects like this one since the 2009 Downtown Master Plan.

Neighbors for More Neighbors WNC advocates for housing that is financially attainable and responsibly located. We also advocate for transportation investments that make our community more affordable and make denser patterns of development work best for all members of our community. And we do that advocacy as thoughtfully and respectfully as possible, trying to honor all the different lived experiences that will be impacted by the changes we promote. We seek to listen, understand, learn, and partner with individuals and groups who want Asheville and WNC to be the best they can be. It is from this place that we ask for your support of the College/Patton project in the hopes that it ultimately proves to be more beneficial to our community than harmful and in the hopes that all members of our community, from the most vulnerable to the most privileged, find themselves able to access and enjoy our city center as neighbors welcoming more neighbors.

Sincerely, 

Susan Bean, Housing & Transportation Director for MountainTrue