Tell us something about your transportation habits. How do you get around Asheville?
I hike/walk, but I live in Oteen. The variability of ART bus timing and a range of reasons makes automobile the best way to reach downtown and other points in the area if you live in Oteen.
It will be interesting to see what more the community team can do with multimodal innovation based on current factors when it comes to basics like where things are happening folks want to get to in contrast to where people live in Asheville.
What do you consider to be the most significant transportation advancement in Asheville and what impact does it have on our community?
I am sure there is a great list of multimodal innovations that have taking place over the years here. For me personally and I think for many others, passenger rail to Asheville would be an epoch in multimodal innovation.
There are all kinds of probably reasons why and what not passenger rail to Asheville hasn’t happened. But the last study on the matter is 15 years old now. Without a feasibility study and environmental impact statement, we don’t have choices because we don’t have good information on passenger rail to Asheville questions.
I developed a package solution in this article.
Please identify one way in which you’ve worked to make Asheville safer for pedestrians, transit users, and / or cyclists. What did you learn from this experience?
I was part of the East Asheville Sidewalks movement. I’ve also done things like contact and follow up with NCDOT to change the pedestrian signal timings at the VA intersection. Veterans, esp. physically disabled veterans, were not given a sensible amount of time to cross until I handled that in 2010.
Literally the VA and NCDOT were not aware and frankly disinterested in fixing the VA crosswalk light until I made sure it was fixed.
What do you consider to be Asheville’s primary transportation challenge and how do you propose to fix it?
Above I covered passenger rail and the I-26 program. Our transportation issues are tied to our sustainable risks. Not everyone can move to Asheville. Geographically we have limits to growth and we are rapidly filling up any remaining development options. Overpopulation means even more resources going to road building and maintenance as well as the traffic and pollutants.
I can only suggest a new community innovation process which includes the merger of sustainability, economic development strategy, while addressing key matters like the need for a comprehensive joint agency multimodal transportation innovation program via reviving GroWNC. I call this ‘GroWNC II’ platform Sustain Asheville / Sustain WNC.
http://www.grantmillin.com/wnc-open-innovation-eds/
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