Proposed bike lanes on Biltmore Ave unpopular among downtown businesses; decision pending
ASHEVILLE - Bike lanes proposed for a short but busy stretch of Biltmore Avenue in downtown have hackles up as business owners fear detrimental impacts to traffic, curbside loading zones and the loss of a key southbound vehicular travel lane.
The 0.3-mile section of Biltmore Avenue stretches between Patton and Hilliard avenues and currently consists of two southbound and one northbound vehicular lanes, with 8-foot wide parking and loading zones on both sides of the street.
The city's proposed restriping project would add 6-foot bike lanes on both sides of the street, remove one of the southbound vehicular lanes and narrow the northbound lane.
“It’s definitely going to be another obstacle on a list of obstacles that come with having a business downtown,” said Jonathan Leibowitz, owner of Manicomio Pizza, which sits along the proposed project corridor.
“I just think that reducing to two lanes is kind of crazy."
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No reductions to parking and loading zones would be made, though the city proposed to add additional loading zones in the project area and enlarge some existing zones.
The restriping would be administered by the N.C. Department of Transportation as part of its repaving of U.S. 25, expected to begin in September.
According to a city staff report, NCDOT has no technical or safety concerns with the proposal to add bike facilities but requested the city conduct public outreach.
Jessica Morriss, the city's assistant director of transportation, admitted that public outreach efforts have been less than ideal. At an Aug. 12 Downtown Commission meeting, she told commissioners that it had been "very limited in time and scope."
The first public outreach effort was June 10 at a meeting of the Downtown Commission, but many business owners, including Leibowitz, said they did not receive word until late July — only a few days before the final decision was slated to be made.
However, the decision deadline of Aug. 12 has come and gone.
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City spokesperson Kim Miller said further conversations between city staff, City Manager Debra Campbell and NCDOT were being conducted.
Morriss said, ultimately, the decision falls to Campbell.
In an Aug. 17 statement, Miller said the city has "identified, based on community input, our next steps in the Biltmore restriping project."
She said the city expects to inform stakeholders and share more information with the larger community "in the coming days."
A split decision
Morriss said the repaving offered an opportunity to "advance city goals as it relates to multimodal transportation and transportation safety overall." As restriping must be done anyway, it is a chance for the city to revisit lane configurations and parking and loading options.
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“As usual, anytime we have a bike lane project proposed, it’s pretty split,” Morriss said. The city has compiled all emails received by Morriss regarding the project into a public document, and as of Aug. 17, 104 comments were logged.
They reflect the division that Morriss described — with the bulk of the public comments, about 82%, in support of the bike lanes, while the 18% of comments in opposition came largely from impacted business owners.
Meghan Rogers, executive director of the Asheville Downtown Association, said a majority of businesses along the corridor are opposed. While many are not adversarial to bike lanes themselves, they are concerned about the loss of loading/unloading space and the lack of public outreach.
"The process, I think, was mishandled," Rogers said in the Aug. 12 meeting.
With dozens of restaurants and shops along the stretch, much of the concern surrounds loading zones, a complication that Morriss acknowledged.
With or without the bike lanes, Morriss said the city plans to improve loading zone access along the corridor. According to the staff report, the city is also exploring potentially reducing the speed limit on Biltmore Avenue south of Aston Street, which is currently 35 mph.
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It is also evaluating additional crosswalks and said emergency services and congestion are not expected to be negatively impacted by the proposed project.
Already, Leibowitz said, trucks are forced to cycle the block in wait of a loading space — which is often nabbed by people looking for parking, rather than its intended use — or are forced to block the right lane, hazards on, with drivers passing around them.
"Having two lanes in either direction is essential," he said. “It’s already a nightmare driving anywhere downtown, as it is."
This was echoed by John McKibbon, vice president, asset management of McKibbon Hospitality, which represents several properties downtown, including the Aloft Asheville Downtown, a hotel that sits at the heart of the proposed project area.
“I haven’t been thrilled about the process, it’s a really short time period,” he said.
While he doesn't want to put all the blame on the city, which he acknowledged is trying to seize on an opportunity presented by NCDOT's restriping project, he said the timeline of the process and character of the corridor isn't a good fit for such changes.
"For folks that are not directly impacted, it just looks good on the surface, but when you really peek at it, it is something that could be compromised in a way that’s not good for anybody,” McKibbon said.
Even with additional loading zones proposed, the "lane diet" won't stop loading and unloading from happening in vehicular travel lanes, it just means when it does, it is "going to be totally impeding one lane of travel."
He anticipates additional congestion, "gridlock," and wonders if speed limits could be slowed instead to increase cyclist safety.
“When you look at this area, how tight the stretch is … is it really the most wise decision to do in this particular scenario?" McKibbon asked. "Is it being forced?"
'Static resistance'
The Biltmore Avenue proposal is one in a series of controversial bike lane conversations on Asheville streets — following on the heels of approval for the Merrimon Avenue road diet in North Asheville and the Charlotte Street road diet project.
A strong supporter of many city bike lane proposals, including the Biltmore repaving, is advocacy group Asheville on Bikes.
Executive Director Mike Sule said the project is an essential opportunity to advance the city's bicycle network and will tie into surrounding bike facilities, such as bike lanes along Hilliard, Coxe and Asheland avenues, and planned lanes on College and Patton avenues downtown.
Sule said though a small section in isolation, it is a bigger piece in a broad vision of multimodal transportation in Asheville.
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“Each incremental win is another brick in the larger network,” he said.
Pushback is always anticipated, he said, but ultimately, he hopes the project, if approved, would lead to a "better condition, healthier street."
“In making that transition, in changing the environment, there is absolutely always going to be pushback. And what I’m learning, over and over again, is most of that pushback isn’t about bike versus car, it’s really about 'hey, wait a minute, you’re changing the environment here. This is new, and new makes me uncomfortable,'" Sule said.
“I see that as the static resistance that we have to push through in order to get to the future success."
Sarah Honosky is the city government reporter for the Asheville Citizen Times, part of the USA TODAY Network. News Tips? Email shonosky@citizentimes.com or message on Twitter at @slhonosky.
This article originally appeared on Asheville Citizen Times: Biltmore Avenue bike lane decision in limbo as Asheville deliberates
