Asheville On BikesPublic Hearing Comment Archives - Asheville On Bikes

AoB Open Letter Urging City Council To Vote In Favor of 4-3 Conversion For Merrimon

Asheville on Bikes — Tue, 17 May 2022 19:05:40 +0000

May 17, 2022
70 Court Plaza
Asheville, NC 28801

Dear Asheville City Council,

On behalf of Asheville on Bikes’ Board of Directors and its members (over 800 strong), I’m writing to encourage you to vote in support of the Merrimon Ave road reconfiguration.

NCDOT, Division 13, City of Asheville staff, members of the Multimodal Transportation Commission have all worked in good faith to produce a public input process that clearly defines the benefits and tradeoffs of a 4 to 3 conversion on Merrimon. The final voice for a more complete Merrimon rests with you on May 24th. This is your opportunity to lead and advance safety and dignity of our public rights of way for all people traveling by a variety of modes.

For those of you concerned about the political repercussions of supporting a safer street configuration, I direct you to the outcome of the public process where 59% of more than 4,000 respondents supported a 4 to 3 conversion on Merrimon Ave. This 59% is a historic result in support of this conversion.

More importantly, please take a moment and listen to this public comment from Gaia to the Multimodal Transportation Commission made on 3/24/2021. Gaia’s courageous statement helped catalyze the support that brought this vote to you. Gaia was struck by a motorist while crossing legally on Merrimon Ave and, as a result of that collision, has suffered dearly. I invite each of you to draw upon Gaia’s courage and examine the opportunity before you. Your vote either advances safety and dignity or re-commits our community to the existing conditions of carnage.

Each vote in support of the Merrimon road reconfiguration is a vote to affirm our collective commitment to public safety on our rights of way. Help lead our City in a direction where these articles become untrue:

Asheville continues to lead in North Carolina in pedestrian and bicyclist collisions
Asheville Citizen Times, A troubling trend: Asheville ranks first in the state for pedestrian deaths per capita).

According to NCDOT and the City of Asheville, the Merrimon data shows that:

“ …there is approximately a 150% higher rate of crashes on Merrimon compared to other similar roadways across the State (for every 10 crashes on other similar roads, Merrimon gets 15) (City of Asheville Merrimon Ave Story Map, Crashes)
Approximately 23% of crashes on Merrimon involve an injury and property damage estimates total more than $7 million.
Merrimon experiences about 13 crashes every month. The chart below summarizes the corridor’s crash statistics.

(City of Asheville / NCDOT Merrimon Story Map, Crashes)

If the current design results in nearly one crash every other day and produces nearly three injuries / month, how can we allow those conditions to continue for the next 10 to 15 years?

Advancing public safety means designing for people moving by a variety of modes and prioritizing for our most vulnerable road users. 8.3% of City residents do not own a car; the City has the obligation to provide safe and accessible infrastructure for these residents as well as motorists.

NCDOT and City of Asheville’s analysis states,

“a potential 29% crash reduction factor, which, if realized, could lead to approximately 50 fewer crashes and 10 fewer injuries on Merrimon every year. If applied evenly across the board, these crash reductions could reduce property damage by about $300,000 every year.”

Considering the existing conditions and the potential return on the investment resulting from a road reconfiguration, the Merrimon Ave re-stripping is a low cost, low hanging fruit, high yield investment in public safety. The current configuration isn’t working for anyone so it’s time to apply a new approach and a more complete design. The Merrimon road reconfiguration is an initial intervention which elevates safety and dignity on our streets.

NCDOT and the MPO are currently studying whether to make similar improvements to Biltmore Ave, McDowell St, Tunnel Rd, and Asheland Ave. Decisions on those recommendations should be coming to you within a year. These future opportunities to improve safety on our streets will be in jeopardy should you hesitate now to make this commitment on Merrimon Ave.

There are lessons to be learned from the Charlotte Street road diet that apply to your vote. The Charlotte Street project was kicked around for 20 years before a road diet treatment was finally approved by council over the concerns and objections of some residents who loudly objected. Like Merrimon, sidewalk improvements were outside the scope of the project but the road diet and new bike lanes have increased pedestrian use. As a result of the success and the calmer conditions, the City of Asheville and NCDOT are expanding sidewalks on Charlotte Street to I-240. When the City leads, NCDOT follows. We need your leadership now.

While the road diet is often framed as controversial, the public support is strong and well informed; citizens desire safer streets and more mobility options. Charlotte Street, Wilma Dykeman Greenway, Coxe Avenue all endured moments – often months or years of moments – of controversy before being supported by City Council. Each one of those projects has been a success, and Merrimon will be too. On behalf of Asheville on Bikes, I urge you to vote in favor of safer streets and approve the Merrimon Ave road reconfiguration.

Respectfully,

Mike Sule

Executive Director, Asheville on Bikes

enc: AoB Research Addendum For City Council

The post AoB Open Letter Urging City Council To Vote In Favor of 4-3 Conversion For Merrimon appeared first on Asheville On Bikes.

Merrimon 4-3 Reconfiguration Research Addendum

Asheville on Bikes — Tue, 17 May 2022 02:24:14 +0000

WHO IS ASHEVILLE ON BIKES?

Asheville on Bikes (AoB) is a 501(c)(3) organization whose mission is to cultivate the culture of urban and commuter bicycle riding through advocacy, education, and celebration. More than 25,000 people have participated in our group rides, hundreds of middle school children have learned to ride through our youth cycling program, and our active membership includes more than 800 residents of Buncombe, Haywood, and Henderson counties. Our after school bicycle program at Asheville Middle School is the only bicycle education program in the state of North Carolina that has run continuously for the last 10 years. In 2020, we won a major national award when we were named Bicycle Advocacy Organization of the Year by the League of American Bicyclists. We are active advocates for multi-modal projects, complete streets, and bicycle or pedestrian infrastructure.

ECONOMIC IMPACTS OF SELECT 4-3 CONVERSION PROJECTS

Project Name	Traffic Volume (ADT)	Location	Economic Impact
Hillsborough St	26,000	Raleigh, NC	Private investments increased from $150 million to $200 million along the corridor.
East Boulevard	21,400	Charlotte, NC	47% increase in non-residential property values.
La Jolla Boulevard	23,000	La Jolla, CA	Retail sales rose 30 percent and noise levels dropped 77 percent.
Edgewater Drive (pdf)	20,000	Orlando, FL	77 net new businesses and 560 jobs over 10 years.

PLANNING DOCUMENTS THAT SUPPORT THIS PROJECT

Click here to see on one page the 23 planning documents that agree with, call for, or support a 4-3 conversion with bike lanes for Merrimon (pdf).

MYTHS ABOUT THIS PROJECT

Myth:		Reality:
Bike riders are forcing this plan on the City		City staff proposed this in 2018 in their letter to NCDOT when the City opposed widening the road. The proposal came from City staff who were acting in accordance with City planning documents calling for increased multimodal infrastructure. None of the proposed plans for Merrimon, in 2018 or today, have been created by Asheville on Bikes or any other group of cycling or pedestrian advocates.
This project is all about a building a bike lane		This project is all about a safer traffic pattern that increases the health and wealth of nearly everyone using this road. Bike lanes are the place where current and future low speed personal vehicles will travel and it is the highest value use of the space created by implementing the 3 lane traffic pattern. The bike lane is welcome, but it is not the primary benefit of this project.
No one uses our existing bike lanes		Imagine a road network for a City of 90,000 where roads do not connect, where many of the roads were unsafe, and where the entire network consisted of less than 15 paved lane-miles and less than 15 miles of greenway. That is the state of our existing bike network in Asheville. In spite of that paltry coverage, bike usage increases each year and bicycle riders regularly use these facilities.
Emergency vehicles will be slowed down		Emergency vehicles are likely to be unaffected or experience faster response times. Neither the road diet on Charlotte Street or College Ave have resulted in increased response times. Further, the reduction in injuries will mean fewer traffic collisions in need of emergency response; road diets average a -29% on all collisions and Charlotte Street has so far resulted in -59% all collisions. The oft repeated myth the 4-3 conversions are bad for emergency responders is directly contradicted by nearly all studies of road diets and is specifically called out by the FHWA.
Business will suffer		Businesses are likely to prosper, because when cars slow down, collisions decrease, biking increases, and walking increases, the amount of commerce in an area goes up. Have you ever wondered why Merrimon harbors so many vacant or derelict properties when compared to other parts of Asheville? One reason is that the current road design makes it difficult to safely reach businesses on this corridor.
All businesses are against this		Many businesses are in favor of this project and have participated in the public process. They are part of the 59% of the public who support this proposal.
It will be more dangerous for cyclists		The flawed logic goes like this: Because the bike lane will be on the right, when a motorist is turning right, they will turn across the bike lane and hit a cyclist, since none were there before this project and some people could use the lane after it is installed. Must we point out that we each have a duty to control our vehicle, to look to see when a travel lane is clear, and that no such problem is occurring on any of Asheville’s other bike lanes? This straw man argument ignores the time-tested safety improvements offered by creating space in the right of way for vehicles other than cars. Bike lanes will create a safer place to ride a bike, an ebike, a one-wheel, an e-scooter and other future forms of personal transportation. It is sorely needed in a City that is otherwise the most dangerous in NC for cyclists or pedestrians.
No one had enough time to comment or learn about this project		Merrimon is controlled by NCDOT and this proposed project is part of a scheduled repaving. NCDOT appears to have communicated with the City in a way that they did not in 2018, including reports about this project during open advisory committee meetings and public traffic study data released about the corridor. From what we can see, NCDOT and the City of Asheville have followed or exceeded all their own published guidelines about holding public meetings and showing plans to the public, going so far as to hold an open call for comments and a survey that amounted to a public referendum on a repaving project. Of the more than 4000 responses to the survey, 59% of respondents were in favor of the 4-3 conversion. Additionally, since the first press release about the project in January 2022, this project has been written about by our newspapers, our local cable news, by neighborhood associations, by AoB, by Connect Buncombe, by Mountain True, and in its many mentions on social media. We don’t know of any similar project that has received so much notice and attention.
Merrimon’s traffic volumes are too high		There is no official upper limit on traffic volumes for a 4-3 conversion, as per the FHWA. Further, the traffic volumes on Merrimon have remained flat or decreased for many years and those volumes, around 20,000 cars/day, are within the range typically considered for a road diet. It is true that these plans should be carefully considered and that the design of this 3 lane could involve other changes to the corridor in order to make the resulting traffic pattern work well for all users.
Merrimon has too many curb cuts for it to work		The number of curb cuts on Merrimon is an example of poor planning in our City, where each landowner has been allowed to take extra benefits from the public asset, a road, in small increments over time, in the form of increased curb cuts to benefit select properties. Current City zoning on Merrimon will require many of the most egregious examples to change at the time property is redeveloped, resulting in a safer traffic pattern and better pedestrian experience. The curb cuts are not, however, a reason to fail to restripe the road now, at low cost, so that it can become safer. Changing the road now makes it even more likely that the sidewalks and curb cuts will be improved by a future project, a situation that has just played out on Charlotte Street and its I-240 bridge.
No case study is relevant because none are exactly like Merrimon		For a case study to be relevant, it does not need to be a mirror image of any particular roadway. Instead, it needs 3 things: a similar traffic volume, a similar mix of commercial and residential areas, and trusted data tracked over time. We can learn useful information from similar roads that are not identical to Merrimon in the same way that you can find a long term romantic partner without finding someone exactly like your mom or dad.
This project doesn’t help pedestrians		4-3 Conversions help pedestrians in several ways. They create a buffer, distancing the sidewalk from fast moving traffic. They improve site lines at all intersections, making it easier for drivers and pedestrians to see each other. They shorten the number of car travel lanes a pedestrian must cross at each intersection. These improvements often result in increases in the number of people walking, setting us up for future projects to directly improve the sidewalks.

LIST OF PEOPLE WHO HAVE DIED OR BEEN DISABLED IN COLLISIONS ON SIMILAR ROADS IN OUR AREA

These are news stories about a few of the many preventable fatalities and injuries occurring on roads in our region. In the current 4 lane configuration you are 150% more likely to be involved in a collision on Merrimon when compared to the NCDOT database of North Carolina roads of similar size.

AOB 101 Charlotte St Public Comment

Asheville on Bikes — Thu, 22 Jul 2021 15:35:15 +0000

TO: Asheville City Council,
FROM: Mike Sule on behalf of Asheville on Bikes

Dear City Council,
On behalf of the Asheville on Bikes’ (AoB) Board of Directors, I encourage you to vote to approve the 101 Charlotte St. project. Historically, AoB’s public input has been limited exclusively to issues of transportation. We’re breaking with that tradition because we feel this project is critical to our goals to establish a robust active transportation network that enables people to move about their community and connect to goods and services through a variety of transportation modes. The 101 project is an immediate opportunity to highlight the interconnectedness of mixed-use dense development and active transportation options, both of which are identified as City of Asheville’s goals in its comprehensive plan, “Living Asheville – A Comprehensive Plan for our Future.”

“Encourage Responsible Growth” is the primary goal of the comprehensive plan and two of the performance measure outcomes relate directly to the proposed change in use. They are:

Higher density smart growth located in areas identified on the Preferred Growth Scenario Map. Charlotte St is identified on the Preferred Growth Scenario Map as an Innovation District and the corridor is a burgeoning business district with existing sidewalks, transit stops, and bicycle facilities. A dense mixed-use development adjacent to these urban transportation essentials aligns directly with Smart Growth principles.

Additional comprehensive plan goals that 101 project actualizes include: “Increase Mixed-Use Development Along Transit Corridors,” “Make Streets More Walkable, Comfortable and Connected,” and “Increase Access to Safe Bicycling.” The related performance measures and their metrics include:

More activity, including people living and working, within a quarter-mile walk of transit
Greater access to jobs, neighborhoods services and transit
Increase access to bicycle infrastructure
Increase in the percentage of people who bike
More bicycle parking facilities

And again, the 101 project inches our City toward the above-codified goals that our community established.

AoB breaks with tradition to support this project because we’re responding to the community’s need to elevate the dialogue regarding the relationship between mobility, proximity, and land use. Dense mixed-use development results in close proximity to goods and services people need. The distance to the market, the doctor’s office, the park, the restaurant, the school, and employment all can exist within a 1, maybe 2-mile circle. Proximity, when coupled with sidewalks, transit, and bicycle facilities, reduces people’s dependence on automobiles.

So much of the 101 opposition is focused on preservation of old homes on the property and traffic without any recognition of how proximity to goods, services, employment, impacts housing costs, mobility options, and health. When we choose urban mixed-use development we offer our citizens accessibility beyond the automobile. Consider that the Charlotte St road diet has increased bicycle use on the street by 70% according to the recent study conducted by Transportation Planning and Design. When we invest in mobility options, people use them especially when distances to goods and services are reduced.

AoB recognizes that existing homes are going away as they are in disrepair and the owners no longer want to be landlords anymore. The property will be redeveloped and the usage will change. A dense mixed-use development adjacent to a burgeoning business district with existing sidewalks, transit stops, and bicycle facilities is the appropriate next iteration of the property.

AoB advocates for bicycle facilities not simply for bikeablity’s sake but rather as an investment in the health of our community. We understand the 101 Charlotte St. project as an investment in the vitality of our city and its people.

Respectfully submitted,

Mike Sule

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Public Comment on FBRMPO 2020 TIP Amendment to delay projects after NCDOT budget shortfall

Asheville on Bikes — Thu, 19 Nov 2020 17:21:30 +0000

We’ve submitted our public comment to the French Broad River Metropolitan Planning Organization (FBRMPO) regarding proposed changes to planned transportation projects in our area. Did you know that many important projects are being delayed as a consequence of a large NCDOT budget shortfall?

Read our comment here!

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