Organizations: 8
Businesses: 34
Individuals: 220

Is your name on the list below? Is your organization or business? Why not? It’s time to sign, and it is time to collectively advocate for more changes to our streets before more people get sick and more businesses fail. Click here to sign the pledge.

While we are all in this pandemic together, it is not true that we must all suffer the same consequences from the pandemic. Some cities will emerge stronger; some will suffer more than their fair share of grief, hurt, and loss. Signing this pledge is a clear vote from you, expressing that Asheville does not have to suffer the maximum consequences from the pandemic.

“The hope that we can motivate the City of Asheville and DOT to allow for reconfiguration and re-imagining or our transportation infrastructure to allow businesses to reopen with appropriate safety and health guidelines, with considerations for expansion of much-needed pedestrian and cycling infrastructure in our city.” – Signed, Stephen Pierson

Click here to sign the pledge and add your name to the list.

Organizations who support changes to our streets:

AARP, Mountain Region, NC
Connect Buncombe
Bicycle Benefits
Asheville Grown Business Alliance
Asheville GreenWorks
East-West Asheville Neighborhood Association (EWANA)
Democracy Rules 4 Senior Suffrage
Mountain True

“We encourage exploring options to help local businesses remain in business through the COVID-19 crisis and keep their employees and customers as safe as possible. We appreciate Asheville on Bikes’ help with creative solutions.” Signed, Franzi Charen, Asheville Grown Business Alliance

Businesses who support changes to our streets:

Liberty Bicycles, Inc.
Jargon Restaurant
CAKE Websites and More, LLC
Instant Karma
Outfitter Bicycle Tours
IP Strategies, P.C.
The Flying Bike
Hip Replacements
Wishbone Tiny Homes
COAST Brewing Company
Hornaday Design
New Belgium Brewing
Benji Burrell LLC
Asheville Bike Company
Turnkey Managers
Industry Nine Componentry
The Market Place Restaurant
Creative Hub Studios
Second Gear
Embellish Asheville
John Hornsby Creative
Trillium Family Medicine
Urban3
Crucible Bar
Proxy Home Watch
Warren Cycling LLC
Paul Taylor Sandals and Adorn Salon
Mary Weber Landscape Architect

“Shared streets will help to activate positive commerce in the midst of this pandemic and in the future will provide a more engaged neighborhood, a more active and beautiful streetscape, and a busy downtown Asheville that gives the right of way and safety to the needs of our locals, tourists, and pedestrians.” William Dissen, Chef and Owner, The Marketplace

Individuals who support changes to our streets:

Aaron Vaughan
Abby Walker
Alex Stevens
Allison Glackin
Allison Mangkang
Amanda Lavallee
Amanda Wilde
Amy Brooks
Amy Hornaday
Andrew Clum
Andrew Harris
Andrew Massey
Andy
Andy Paul
Andy Preston
Anna Pizzo
Annie Butzner
Annie Clingenpeel
Arthur McLean
Ashlee Lafferty
Austin Walker
Ava Carr
Barb Skupien
Beatrice Nathan
Ben Brown
Benji Burrell
Bess Baird
Bethany Malley Wijesinghe
Brandon Skupski
Brian Habel
Brian O’Donnell
Brooke Heaton
Bryan Overcarsh
Carol Kaufman
Carolina McCready
Cate Brandt Ryba
Cathy Williams
Chafin Rhyne
Chris
Chris Cabral
Chris Schmidt
Claire Siegel
Clark Mackey
Conway Weary
Coral Woods
Craig Friedrich
Dan Fisher
Dan Glidden
Daniel Manget
Danise Hauser
David E. Bendel
David Schroeder
Dawn Chavez
Deborah Compton
Deborah K. Inaba
Debra Layne
Douglas Engle
Ed Broadbear
Elbert
Elisa Roberts
Ellen Szedon
Ellison Smith
Emery Fischer-Schmidt
Emily Kujawa
Emily Muscarella
Emma Hutchens
Ernie Boyd
Estelle Woodward Arnal
Franzi Charen
Garvin Deters
Gen Kogure
Georgeanna Connors
Han Winogrond
Heath Dotson
Helen Hyatt
Ian Canary-King
Ian Cannon
Ian Klepetar
Isaac Pino
Jackie Rees
Jacob McGahey
Jacqueline Pauley
Jaime Tenny
James Dunton
Jamie Gilpin
Jan Sturgis
Jan Wencel
Jay Dore
Jeff Sawdy
Jen Chandlee
Jennie Rhyne
Jennifer Arellano
Jenny Fares
Jeremy Marcus
Jill Huebner
Jim DeGrave
Jim Grode
Joanne Stephenson
Jocelyn Hayes
John Hornsby
Joseph Minicozzi
Josh Baker
Joy Cadelina
Judith Chitwood
Julia Furdyna
Julie Stehling
Justin Landry
Katherine Thiel
Kim Mosteller
Kim Roe
Kim Roney
Krista Stearns
Larissa Bowman
Laura F. Richardson
Leah Cooper
Lee Seabrook
Lesa Peterson
Linda Giltz
Linda Tsan
Lindsay Broughel
Lindsey Prather
Lisa Swaim
Lisa-Gaye Hall
Mackenzie Kramer
Maggie Barry
Maggie Carnevale
Maggie Waddoups
Marcia Schroeder
Margaret Dahm
Marie-Louise Murphy
Mark Cobb
Mark McNeill MD
Mary
Matt Logan
Melissa Hicks
Meredith Singer
Michael Craft
Michael Stratton
Michele Bryan
Michelle Conklin
Michelle Pugliese
Mike and Claudia Nix
Mike Edwards
Nanci Mackey
Nancy Fitzpatrick
Natalie Arkfeld
Nathan Boniske
Nelle Gregory
Nick Kroncke
Nona Martin Atuck
Parker Sloan
Patricia Robbins
Patrick Conant
Paul Reeves
Peter Billingsley
Peter Shoemaker
Pierce Holloway
Rachelle Sorensen-Cox
Rebecca Chaplin
Rebecca Cramer
Rebecca Falls
Redus Brooks
Rhonda Egerton
Robert McAtee
Rod Baird
Ron Ogle
Russ Towers
Sam Hollis
Sara Alford
Sarah Brown
Sarah Dearing Davis
Sarah Haske
Sarah Thomas
Sean Piper
Serge Reinert
Shawndra Russell
Shelley McNeill
Simone Seitz
Sophie Mullinax
Stephen Edge
Stephen Pierson
Steve Eisenstein
Susan Casar
Susan Loftis
Suzanne Sule
Teal Brown
Thomas Champagne
Thomas Hinton
Tim Spira
Timothy Seneker
Timothy Spira
Tom Byers
Tom Piccirilli
Tony Hauser
Torin Kexel
Trevor Gwillim
Tyler Davis
Valerie L Martin
Vann Jennings
Veronica Crane-Lindsey
Veronika Gunter
Vicki Meath
Victoria Solbert
Wesley Gibson
William Armshaw
William Dissen
William Miller

“We are relocating to Asheville in August. I support slow streets and those designed for multiple mobility options. During COVID we need to redesign our community streets to allow for active mobility and for social distancing while supporting our local shops and restaurants.” Signed, Maggie Waddoups

“Virus is a present threat and will be here until there’s a vaccination. Let’s keep our downtown vibrant by providing spaces for pedestrians and non-motorized transportation.” Signed, Bess Baird

“Improved access to safe bike-able and walk-able streets leads to better health and a better quality of life.” Signed, Mark McNeill MD, Trillium Family Medicine

“As we live and age, the need for physical activity and social connectivity become increasingly important. Older adults in our community need safe, physically distant places to see others, feel a part of the community and maintain physical activity.“ Signed, Rebecca Chaplin, Associate State Director, AARP, Mountain Region, NC

Click here to sign the pledge and add your name to the list.

The post Support for the pledge is growing! You should sign it, too. appeared first on Asheville On Bikes.

Our pledge distills the general changes needed into three main points:

1. The City and State should designate a slow streets network to connect people to places;
2. The City and State should cooperate to implement safe commerce zones, a.k.a. pedestrian priority zones, that are connected to the slow streets network;
3. Volunteers and community organizations should be invited to help implement the changes, rather than relying on normal City processes for implementation. Time is of the essence and multiple groups, including AoB, stand ready to assist.

Read and sign the pledge here!

This crisis is not going away, and, just as many experts have predicted, there will be multiple outbreaks, waves, and unexpected discoveries along the way. It would be foolish to continue using our streets the way they are configured now, when we can instead shift to living more of our lives outdoors while maintaining safe social distances.

We continue to witness some of our favorite people and businesses struggling. By re-allocating public space, we are providing help to some of our local businesses and we lessen the number of people who get sick. Let’s minimize the damage from the crisis and make these changes without further delay. We look forward to seeing the City’s plans.

Read and sign the pledge here!

Is signing a pledge necessary? We think it is. It’s time for multiple individuals, businesses, and local organizations to come together and help make our City safer during the pandemic. Let’s make some changes, working together.

Further reading:

• Video playlist about Coronavirus Street Changes
• Open letter to Asheville City Council asking for Changes
• Interview with members of Multi-Modal Transit about how a plan could work
• USA Today article “Tired of red tape, Asheville restaurants say city needs to act fast to save them”

The post Sign the Pledge of Support for Changes to Our Streets appeared first on Asheville On Bikes.

List of resources mentioned or shown during this interview:

• Download the plan that is being discussed in the interview, as pdf.
• More about Asheville’s Multi-Modal Transportation Commission
• Streetmix, a tool for creating before and after cross sections of streets
• Lisabeth Medlock’s survey results about people using downtown Asheville during the COVID-19 pandemic
• Asheville City Council meeting 5/26 re: Budget Crunch from COVID-19 consequences
• Nationwide bicycle riding and bike sales, both up sharply
• Oakland’s slow street network, 74+ miles, calmed by citizens without much City work
• The City of Asheville public feedback portal for re-allocating public space
• The NACTO Crisis Response Guide
• The Street Plans Tactical Urbanism materials guide, showing temporary materials

You may also enjoy this curated playlist of videos about cities who are using the public right of way differently as part of their COVID-19 response.

Please leave your feedback in the comments below.

Related Posts:

1. Released: Asheville MMTC members COVID-19 Streets Proposal
2. Youtube playlist: Cities Creating Space in Response to COVID-19

The post Interview: Explaining commerce zones and low speed streets appeared first on Asheville On Bikes.

Download the MMTC COVID-19 PDF

Click here to download the pdf of the MMTC COVID-19 Streets proposal.

That linked pdf is not an official City of Asheville plan, and we know that City staff are working on their own plans that incorporate at least some of the ideas shown in this draft. We urge them to publish their plans and a timeline for making changes to our streets to make our community safer and to help ailing businesses who are now reopening.

Four important truths about the COVID-19 pandemic

1. Personal interactions and commerce are best conducted outdoors, where the risk of spread is lower;
2. People with strong immune systems and good health fare better when infected;
3. Maintaining some social distance and mask wearing is prudent and both should be a normal practice;
4. This pandemic is not ending anytime soon, since the disease will recur until we have a vaccine safely administered to a large number of people or achieve equivalent herd immunity.

To accommodate those facts, we want the City of Asheville to re-purpose the public right of way to make more space for commerce, social distancing, for people on foot, or for riding a bicycle.

These changes should be made with paint, tape, movable barricades, and other similar temporary materials. This is a form of tactical urbanism, as a crisis response.

It’s imperative we allocate some of the extra space to help our local businesses by allowing them to more easily serve customers outside. We have written to the City of Asheville asking them to act and make these changes – you can read our April 29th letter here. We also tested our sidewalks directly and found that, in most places in Asheville, it is currently impossible to follow the guidelines for controlling the spread of COVID-19.

Learn From Other Cities and Experts

Jeff Speck laid out the clear rationale for these changes in a recent presentation for the City of Boston. You can watch his excellent Boston COVID-19 presentation here.

Tampa, FL released an excellent plan. Read the Tampa plan here.

Oakland, CA created a network of low speed streets using only a map drawn by the City and volunteer actions from neighbors. Learn about how they did it in this 2 minute video.

Read about the plans already enacted by 256+ other cities, all listed in one searchable database.

Use the NACTO COVID-19 Response Kit

This kit is excellent and has been released by one of the most highly trusted authorities on City Planning and street design in the United States, the National Association of City Transportation Officials (NACTO).

The NACTO crisis response guide shows street designs, materials, and examples. The guide is written for problem solvers, city staffers, and citizens who are working during the crisis. You can download the NACTO COVID-19 Response Guide here.

The City of Asheville Should Act Now

Our new downtown delivery zones are a small step in the right direction but we must go further and faster. As a City, we should not wait, because waiting means people get sick who might have otherwise avoided illness. The safest path forward is to make changes to our streets now, then test and tune as we go.

The post Released: Asheville MMTC members COVID-19 Streets Proposal appeared first on Asheville On Bikes.

At its core, this map is one idea: We should plan for and build a connected network for biking and walking, routes that connect people to places without requiring the use of car.

Black lines are low speed play streets. This network could work very similarly to the one in Oakland, which required only that the City designate the list of streets to be treated as slow streets. The enforcement and signage on these streets is put up and maintained by neighbors on the street.

Red and Purple are separated infrastructure on existing streets. Purple is the circulator, a mostly flat route that flows people to and from their destinations without requiring them to use a car.

Some of the lines on this map include existing bike lanes, existing greenways, or planned greenways. Our current City and County plans (AIM plan, Greenway plans) do not go far enough and we want to see a network built, not individual projects that do not connect to each other.

On all these streets cars continue to come and go, but portions of the right of way are altered to make safe paths for other users.

What streets should be added to this map? What streets should be removed? We welcome your comments.

The post Asheville on Bikes Low Speed Street Network and Circulator Map appeared first on Asheville On Bikes.

City of Asheville

Dear Mayor Manheimer & City Council,

Thank you all for the work that you’re doing to keep our community safe during this pandemic. Your commitment to our health and wellness is greatly appreciated.

Asheville on Bikes encourages the City of Asheville to act now to create more space for people to walk and bike while maintaining safe physical distance. We support transforming the public right of way to create robust space for active transportation uses. There is much the city can do to quickly create facilities that promote safe physical distancing facilities as we begin to emerge from the COVID-19 pandemic. These changes can be made quickly, with temporary materials, and can be implemented at low cost, compared to traditional road rebuild projects.   

The shortcomings of our existing facilities can be resolved with a quick build approach to rapidly expand active transportation networks throughout our community. Many cities are responding to this public need. Consider the following examples:

• Minneapolis, MN – Stay Healthy Streets
• St Paul, MN – Streets Open for People
• Kansas City, MO – Neighborhood Open Streets, Local Traffic Only Road Closures 
• Seattle, WA – Stay Healthy Street
• Oakland, CA – Slow Streets
• Salt Lake City, UT – Stay Safe Stay Active Streets
• New York City, NY – 100 Miles of City Street for Pedestrians
• New Zealand – Funds Pop – Up Bike Lanes & Sidewalks

Kansas City, MO’s initiative closed four streets to automobiles as an initial test but has four more streets queued should the closures be a success, while Oakland, CA opted to slow 10% of its streets to create a network.  The various interventions serve to make walking and biking more accessible during the pandemic. Now is the time for Asheville to learn from the existing models and create Asheville’s COVID-19-safe streets.

The Street Tweaks Team’s Coxe Ave project is a local model that should be explored as the city and partners respond, because the current Coxe Ave configuration provides between ten to fifteen feet widths dedicated to pedestrian and bicyclist movements built with low cost temporary materials. The Coxe Ave success should be replicated in other areas of downtown and on arterial connectors. Asheville on Bikes is at the ready to provide guidance.

We filmed a short video that demonstrates the problems we face now in downtown Asheville and other dense parts of town with 5 foot sidewalks. It is worth 1 minute of your time to watch; click here.

And it is not just Asheville on Bikes saying this, though we do speak for hundreds of our donors and members. There are threads on Reddit full of Asheville citizens who support quick build pedestrian facilities. Similarly there are many public comments on Facebook crying out for a way to move around without infecting others.

Here’s an Asheville mom who made her own video with her daughter, measuring social distance and our sidewalks. It’s great. Click here to watch her two minute video.

Please take steps now to establish streets that allow for walking, biking, and proper social distances. We need space more than we need on-street parking in most areas downtown. Further, these changes are an essential component of reopening our city’s economy as any plan to reopen area businesses will require physical distancing protocols. Though we know that a network of sidewalks and low speed vehicle lanes is key to our future, the virus has made the need even more urgent. Please work to transform the public right of way to provide safe options for our community.

Respectfully,
Mike Sule
Asheville on Bikes

As submitted 4/29/2020

The post Letter to Council: We need more space for walking and biking and social distancing appeared first on Asheville On Bikes.