Asheville City Council approves Merrimon Avenue road diet after contentious debate

ASHEVILLE - At its May 24 meeting, Asheville City Council approved the controversial Merrimon Avenue road diet, which will reduce a section of the central Asheville corridor from four lanes to three.

“I think we have a duty. We have a duty to make this road safer for our community," said Mayor Esther Manheimer.

The months-long conversation has mired the community in a debate about the future of Merrimon Avenue, a traffic-prone and oft-congested north-south corridor central to Asheville.

City Council approved the conversion in a 6-1 vote, with only council member Sandra Kilgore voting against.

The proposed project is part of the N.C. Department of Transportation's upcoming resurfacing project, and considers about 2.5 miles of Merrimon Avenue from I-240 to Midland Road at Beaver Lake.

While the entire stretch will be repaved and restriped, the northern section, from W.T. Weaver Boulevard to Midland Road, will be impacted by the conversion.

It would also add 5-foot bicycle lanes along both sides of the road.

Previous coverage: 

• Asheville greenlights NCDOT's Merrimon Avenue plan for May council vote

• Merrimon Avenue 'road diet' lane-reduction proposal draws 4k public comments. Now what?

• Controversial Merrimon Avenue lane reduction proposal draws hundreds to open house

• Merrimon Avenue proposed lane reduction: 'Nightmare' or 'healthy, safe heartbeat?'

Kilgore, the sole vote against the project, had a number of concerns ranging from safety and area growth to slowed traffic.

As a high traffic area, Kilgore said inviting cyclists to the corridor was "irresponsible."

Manheimer took the opposite stance. She said she's lived in North Asheville since 1988. It's an area she drives daily, she said, where she grocery shops, walks, runs and pushed her children in baby carriages.

She attested personally to fatal accidents that have happened along the corridor.

“We have to think of a different ways to make our streets livable,” Manheimer said. “It is imperative for us to make it safer, and I think this change will be good.”

'Dead set against it'

At the May 24 meeting, 10 residents, many of whom lived or worked along the corridor, spoke regarding the project at the tail-end of a lengthy City Council meeting.

Four of the speakers were in favor of the project and five were against.

It's a proposal that has split many respondents, but most, regardless of stance, were passionate about their position — a fervor shared by some council members at the Tuesday night meeting.

"I am dead set against it," said one speaker, Cynthia Frazier, a commercial business owner along the corridor.

Like many, she questioned the safety of the conversion, and said she feared the project would lead to cyclist deaths.

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Other opponents of the project, such as Cynthia Hamilton, called it "fundamentally flawed and unsafe," and said obstacles like trash and delivery trucks would make the road dangerous to navigate.

Nonprofit bicycle advocacy group Asheville on Bikes has been among the strong supporters of the conversion. Board chair Clark Mackey spoke in support, attesting to health and safety benefits for the community.

“It’s not easy to advance a project that is asking our world to change,” Mackey said.

Project details

With a total price tag of $2.5 million, NCDOT will shoulder the burden of the cost, but asked the city to contribute $275,000 toward the project to cover the the adjustments of traffic signal heads at each of the signalized intersections.

Completion of the project is anticipated by Dec. 31.

The road diet is expected to slow traffic but aims for a safer roadway and greater options for all multi-modal users, according to a presentation given by Ken Putnam, the city's director of transportation, at the May 24 council meeting.

The project is anticipated to cause a 17% increase in travel times, or about two to three minutes of delay, said NCDOT Division Engineer Mark Gibbs, who was present at the May 24 meeting.

According to NCDOT data, over the last 10 years the 2.5-mile section of Merrimon Avenue has seen more than the expected number of roadway crashes.

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Data shows that there is approximately a 150% higher rate of crashes on the corridor compared to other similar roadways across the state — for every 10 crashes on other similar roads, Merrimon Avenue has 15.

The safety benefits on Merrimon suggest a potential 29% crash reduction factor, which, if realized, could lead to about 50 fewer crashes and 10 fewer injuries on Merrimon every year, according to NCDOT.

Putnam said the city and NCDOT staff have been discussing the possibility of a conversion since 2018. A public input process was initiated in December 2021 — a sprawling and often contentious process that culminated in a crowed open house and a public survey.

Survey results were received from more than 3,400 participants, with 4,038 comments total, including those received by mail, email, online, hotline calls, through the survey and at the open house.

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According to the city staff report, results of the survey indicated that 59% of the respondents support a four to three lane conversion.

Although city and NCDOT staff fully expect the road diet to be successful, said Putnam, the agreement includes a removal clause that establishes the criteria and conditions to evaluate if safety issues occur.

If the removal clause is exercised, the city would be responsible for the appropriate traffic signal adjustments and pavement markings up to a maximum cost of $300,000.

While some opponents of the project have argued that a conversion to three lanes would be prohibitive to the city's public safety, Putnam's presentations said that the Asheville Fire Department does not anticipate any negative impacts, and the Asheville Police Department are "now comfortable" with the project, despite initial concerns about impacts to call times.

APD will closely monitor response times after project completion, according to the presentation.

The agreement between the city and NCDOT, which city council approved City Manager to enter into Tuesday night, includes:

• Construction and maintenance responsibilities.

• A removal clause of $300,00 at the city's expense if the project were to be reversed.

• Total project cost and cost sharing amounts.

• A condition that NCDOT and city staff will meet on a quarterly basis following implementation to review safety and operations data including response time data provided by APD to assess impacts of the conversion.

Among the projects vocal supporters is Mike Sule, executive director of Asheville on Bikes, who has been pushing for the project from the get-go.

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A May 17 open letter to City Council urged a vote in favor of the conversion, attesting greater safety, strong public support and more mobility options.

Sule said the night's vote was a "clear indication of our leadership's commitment to complete streets."

"We can, indeed, design our way to safer streets," he said.

Next steps?

Following the vote, Gibbs said the department is excited about moving forward, and "looking forward to a safer facility," what he said has always been the department's number one priority.

He said they expect less accidents along the corridor, and that those that do happen will be less severe.

The next step, he said, is to go through a process to redesign the signals, which will take 2-3 months.

The project is already under contract for the resurfacing, Gibbs said, so with council approval, all that will change is the striping design.

Resurfacing will commence in the August to September timeframe he said, and the new configuration will go in soon thereafter. He anticipates the conversion will be in place sometime in October.

Sarah Honosky is the city government reporter for the Asheville Citizen Times, part of the USA TODAY Network. News Tips? Email [email protected] or message on Twitter at @slhonosky. 

This article originally appeared on Asheville Citizen Times: Asheville City Council approves Merrimon Avenue 4 to 3 lane conversion