Asheville On Bikes4-3 Conversion Archives - 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.

Merrimon 4-3 Conversion Public Comment Guidance

Asheville on Bikes — Fri, 25 Feb 2022 14:41:18 +0000

The City of Asheville in partnership with North Carolina Department of Transportation (NCDOT) have published a Story Map and public survey to collect input about the proposed 4-3 conversion for Merrimon.

AoB endorses the proposed 4 – 3 conversion and encourages you to take the survey and show your support.

Take the survey:

The Merrimon survey is here. It is open until March 22nd.

Follow AoB’s survey guidance to maximize your support.

The City also has an explanation of the project here: https://publicinput.com/Merrimon-Asheville and a map that allows you to see traffic and collision data for the corridor. That Storymap is here.

If you are looking for our 33 page study of the proposal, that’s here. And our up-to-date resource page tracking the proposal is here.

Question 1:

Answer based on when you use Merrimon:

Question 2:

Before answering this question, consider how often you cross over Merrimon on your bicycle or by walking. If you primarily bike within Asheville, and cross over Merrimon, then you are one of the primary bicycle users who ride on Merrimon. If you can, use this opportunity to demonstrate that people on bikes and walking do, indeed, use this street.

Question 3:

Make sure that “I visit shops, businesses, and / or dining establishments on Merrimon” is included in one of your top three answers. It’s important that decision makers understand Merrimon as a robust commercial zone that connects people to goods and services. One of the main benefits of this conversion is to improve the connections between local residents and businesses on the corridor.

Question 4:

Be sure to rank “Safety,” as the most important consideration and then rank “Other” as the second most important consideration. Often bicycle and pedestrian facilities aren’t included in NCDOT priorities and they have been left off this list entirely, so it’s up to you to make the extra step to include them as “Other.” Put “Speed” in last place as the least important consideration.

Question 5:

Zero bicycle facilities and unpredictable traffic movements make Merrimon an inhospitable place for people on bikes. Slide to “Unsafe.”

Question 6:

Independent of any timing or bus line problems, bus riders are harmed by the lacks of adequate or ADA compliant sidewalks, since all transit users are sidewalk users. Additionally, some of the bus stop locations encourage people to wait inches from traffic or to sprint across the roadway to reach the correct bus stop for the bus they need to take. Slide all the way to “Unsafe.”

Question 7: Cars.

The City of Asheville’s Story Board states, “Over the last 10 years, this 2.5 mile section of Merrimon has seen more than the expected number of roadway crashes. 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)…Approximately 23% of crashes on Merrimon involve an injury and property damage estimates total more than $7 million.” You can listen to a first hand account of one of these collisions here.

Slide it all the way to unsafe.

Question 8. Sidewalks.

The existing sidewalks are incomplete, inadequate, and far from ADA compliant. Although sidewalk improvements are outside the scope of this road reconfiguration project, it’s important to document how dangerous and unreliable the active transportation facilities are. Slide all the way to “Unsafe.”

Question 9. Top three challenges?

The top three challenges to using Merrimon Ave are: 1) Vehicles making left turns block the travel lane, 2) There are no bike lanes, 3) Sidewalks are in poor conditions and/or difficult to use.

Question 10 & 11. Would you accept greater rush hour travel time?

The following questions are questions of values. This is really the crux of the decision to move forward with a road reconfiguration. NCDOT’s analysis claims that travel times could be increased during peak times, between 1 min to 2 min. Are you willing to spend more time on Merrimon for a 29% decrease in collisions? Essentially, are you for a safer street or a collision prone street?

1 to 2 minutes during peak times is an acceptable trade off for a 29% reduction in collisions. Can you imagine an airline company asking customers, “Do you value a faster plane or a safer plane?” Faster travel times should not be an important design goal on a road as dangerous as Merrimon.

Question 12. Would you change your commute?

It’s easy to forget that there are other North-South connections and that some people can change their commuter times – not all, but some. Also, according to NCDOT’s analysis, traffic volumes on Merrimon haven’t changed significantly for 20 years and stay in a range of about 20,000 cars/day.

Choose “Yes” and indicate which type of change you would consider if you knew that your route was congested.

Use “other” to draw attention to the significant growth in remote work, a change that increasingly looks permanent for a large portion of the U.S. workforce.

Question 13. How likely are you to change modes?

This question is about mode share. This is important because NCDOT’s traffic models do not account well for mode share changes over time. Traffic projections, wait times, and estimates of queuing at lights along Merrimon all assume that people will drive because that’s what we have done in the past. If Merrimon changed to 3 lanes, had a slower, calmer traffic pattern, was easier to cross as a pedestrian, and had a bike lane, what other modes would you consider using?

Make use of “other”
You can use “other” to list things like wheel chairs, e-bikes, e-scooters, One Wheels, e-cargo bikes. A new ebike sold every 52 seconds in the U.S. in 2020 and sales continue to climb.

Question 14. What other transportation improvements?

Generally, AoB discourages copy and paste answers but this time it’s just too important to miss the opportunity to encourage NCDOT to explore and consider signalization changes along the corridor. Oftentimes, simple adjustments in traffic signals maximizes the efficiency of a corridor. We need to remind NCDOT that signalization upgrades are an option. Similarly, if the road diet works north of W.T. Weaver, it is also likely to work north of Chestnut. Ask them to expand the portion of the road included in the 4-3 conversion.

Copy and paste this statement into the survey:
The 4 to 3 conversion should be expanded and begin at the intersection of Chestnut and Merrimon. Install loop detectors on all lanes at all intersections so motorists don’t wait for unneeded light cycles. Install loop detectors and push button detectors for bicyclists facing bike lanes to optimize traffic flow. Follow AASHTO’s “Guide for the Planning, Design, and Operation of Pedestrian Facilities” which says “Pedestrians must be able to cross streets and highways at regular intervals. Unlike motor vehicles, pedestrians cannot be expected to go a quarter mile or more out of their way to take advantage of a controlled intersection” (30).

Question 15 and 16. Help or hurt businesses?

The research overwhelmingly supports that when active transportation access improves, there is a positive economic impact on the corridor.

This is an excellent opportunity to cite NCDOT’s past work so that our local engineers may be informed by their own agency’s case studies regarding Complete Street treatments and road re-configurations. There are several examples of 4 to 3 conversions throughout NC that improved safety, improved multimodal access, and result in positive economic impacts along the improved corridors.

If you want to point to another 4-3 conversion that works, copy and paste any of the following:

The West Morehead Streetscape Project in Charlotte, NC is listed as a 3 lane conversion on NCDOT’s Complete Streets website. It states, “Complete Streets features have been key to revitalizing this commercial corridor. Now, after the Streetscape Project, West Morehead serves as a gateway into the City. The project improved the quality of life for pedestrians, and economic development has boomed as well.” – Project Manager Leslie Bing
East Boulevard Road Diet Project in Charlotte, NC saw crashes decrease and tax revenues increase. “Overall, crashes decreased in both sections, from 2.64 to 1.67 crashes per month in Phase 1 and 1.97 to 1.86 crashes per month in Phase 2. Improvements in safety have gone hand-in-hand with a 47% increase in non-residential property values in the Phase 2 section, which raised annual tax revenues by $530,000.”
Hillsborough Street in Raliegh, NC installed a 4-3 conversion on a traffic volume of 26,000 cars per day. It worked and private investment in the corridor went up from $150m to $200m after the project. “Revitalizing the community was more important than the street improvements,” he says. “The street just became the focal point of how to get it done.” Collisions decreased by 23% after the install while also revitalizing the community.

If you want to tell your own story, tell a story of how your travel patterns on the future corridor can make existing businesses more money while we all experience the safety benefits of this change. For example:

I look forward to walking from my house in Norwood Park to Zen Sushi and The Hop.
I’m tired of white knuckled driving with my head on a swivel every time need to go to the drug store. I know Merrimon is dangerous and I want it to be safer – even for cars.
I look forward to riding to ACE Hardware on my e-bike to pick up a few screws for my next project
My daughter wants to ride her bike to the comic book shop but I won’t let her. Maybe I will if this conversion happens.
I’m tired of running for my life when I park across the street from Vinnie’s Italian. I shouldn’t have to risk my life to eat Italian food.
I rarely walk to any business on the other side of Merrimon from my neighborhood – it’s like those businesses are missing half their customers now, the ones from the other side!
I want to take my kids to school at Ira B. Jones on an electric cargo bike (skip the car line!) but I cannot get their safely on any direct route, since I live on the west side of Merrimon.

Question 17: Support the 4-3 conversion?

Choose “Totally Supportive”

Question 18: Widen Side Streets?

We don’t think these changes should be planned in advance, without demonstrated need, for each of these intersections. You should select “No.” The issue highlighted here is that if each intersection on Merrimon is cycling through a new left turn cycle, made possible by the new center turn lane, then each intersection would take longer to cycle through all phases than it does today, allowing a longer line of cars to arrive and line up on side streets, facing the intersection. It is important for NCDOT to make sure signalization is tuned after installation of the project and to install loop detectors on all lanes at each intersection for the same reason, to minimize wait times.

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