BLACK MOUNTAIN– With a population of 8,384, this is still a small town, but it is large enough to have traffic jams.
When tourists, summer campers, and tractor-trailers flood in at busy times of the year, Melody Koebernik says she has to use shortcuts on her way back from lunch to avoid sitting through four or five cycles of the traffic light in front of her Key City Antiques shop.
Peter Ballhaussen, co-owner of Town Hardware & General Store across East State Street from Koebernik's shop, keeps his eye out for large trucks that ignore a prohibition on making a right turn from State to Broadway Avenue, headed toward Interstate 40.
It is not unusual for them to come within a hair's breadth of taking out atraffic light pole 3 or 4 feet from the corner of his store, he says.
State government recently accelerated planning for a new I-40 interchange on the town's east side to give cars and pedestrians more breathing room around the central crossroads whereState Street, Broadway Avenue and Montreat Road intersect.
Construction is now scheduled to begin in 2021 and end in 2023.
The I-40 interchange is one of several projects planned by the state Department of Transportation to alleviate congestion at traffic choke points around Buncombe County.
Work on one is underway and construction on others will begin later this decade or early in the next, according to a new long-range plan the N.C. Board of Transportation adopted last month.
Changing traffic, changing minds
Koebernik's shop window at the center of town gives her a great view down State Street to the east.
"It can get very busy, especially with the tractor-trailers coming through," she said last week. "I've seen it get backed up as far as the eye can see, and I know it's frustrating for the tourists."
The eye can only see about three blocks or so in that direction, but Koebernik and others figure a traffic jam of even that size can deter shoppers from visiting downtown and its eclectic collection of shops.
The grid of streets is almost idealfor walking from thefurniture store to thebookstore to thecupcake shop, but shopkeepers say heavy truck traffic doesn't fit well with the small-scale downtown.
At times, there is "a lot of noise, a lot of traffic,"Ballhaussen said. An interchange that would allow large trucks and some other traffic to avoid downtown "would help tremendously," he said.
Ingles Markets' giant warehouse on U.S. 70 on the west side of town generates much of the tractor-trailer traffic, and some trucks are headed to or from other industries in the eastern end of the Swannanoa Valley.
In the last decade, town officials and the DOT considered an interchange where I-40 crosses over Blue Ridge Road near Ingles' facility.
The idea and changes to Blue Ridge Road that might havecomewith it sparked sharp opposition from residents along the road then.The town Board of Aldermen voted to drop plans in February 2007 and DOT went along.
The board reversed course in 2011. Alarge, out-of-town brewery was considering property near the interchange as a new location;a major expansion of Ingles' warehouse and corporate headquarters was scheduled to open in 2012; and traffic downtown wasn't getting any better.
Since then, skin care products company Avadim Technologies announced plans in 2016 to employ 551 people at a plant to be built near the interchange. Work has yet to begin.
Black Mountain Mayor Mike Sobol hassaid the new proposal will have less impact on Blue Ridge Road, decreasing the amount of traffic it will draw through residential areas.
The interchange did not immediately return to DOT's funding plans after the Board of Aldermen's about-face, and a previous version of DOT's master plan called for construction to begin in 2023.
The most recent version moves that date up to 2021.
Road construction funding in North Carolina is tied closely to the state gas tax and vehicle sales. Lower gas prices and more fuel efficient vehicles made it difficult for the state to draw in enough gas tax revenue to build roads called for in DOT plans a few years ago.
DOT's funding picture has brightened more recently, however, asthe General Assembly has gradually eliminated a significant transfer of highway money to the state's general fund that had reached $216 million or more a year and limited how low the gas tax can fall. Legislators have also raised fees paid to the Division of Motor Vehicles.
Town officials' change in stance was the major reason DOT put the interchange back on its priority list, said Rick Tipton, division construction engineer for the agency.
The DOT master plan says the new project will involve widening the short section of Blue Ridge Road between U.S. 70 and I-40 to three lanes and other, unspecified improvements to part of Blue Ridge Road south of I-40.
"We're really just starting (planning) work on it, trying to determine what it would look like," Tipton said.
Questions like how the interchange will be configured, what changes will be made to Blue Ridge Road and how many homes would be affected are yet to be decided, he said.
'The honey man'
Edward and Paula Buchanan remember what the last proposal for an I-40/Blue Ridge Road interchange looked like: A ramp would have been built right through their home.
The impact of the project on people like the Buchanans was Koebernik's only misgiving about the interchange.
She called Edward Buchanan, who is 82, "the honey man." He hasabout 150 beehives on his property immediately to the south of I-40 andsets out jars of honey on the back porch for sale on the honor system.
The Buchanans have lived in the home for 50 years. They say it is a certainty that an interchange will result in the home'sremoval and they have no idea where they will go once it is torn down.
They attended every town meeting on the project a decade ago to oppose it, Paula Buchanan said. This time, they are resigned to the idea -- more or less -- but neither is happy about it.
"I know we need it," said Edward Buchanan, who used to work for DOT. "Well, that's life," he added later.
"I think it's the worst thing," Paula Buchanan said. "When the state can come in and throw you out of your house, it's not good. It'll break your heart."
I-26/Brevard Road
Drivers have spent so much time sitting on eastbound I-40 trying to get onto eastbound Interstate 26 near Asheville that you sort of expect DOT to set up tables with old magazines on them beside the road like in your doctor's waiting room.
And, work in the area isnot over yet.
The delays started when a contractor began work on a new bridge over Pond Road and Hominy Creek just south of the interchange in October 2012.
The contractor quickly fell behind, then stopped work and declared bankruptcy. DOT had to find another company to finish the job.
All I-26 lanes have typically been open since work began, but the curves necessary to steer vehicles through the work site have slowed trafficduring busy periods, sometimes to a crawl.
The bridge work is essentially done, Tipton said. But a much smaller project to extend by 1,000 feet the lane traffic uses to merge onto eastbound I-26 from eastbound I-40 began in mid-August and is scheduled to run until October or November.
Workers have blocked off the I-26 shoulder in that area and traffic has backed up during busy times again. Any construction requiring a lane closure will be done during off-peak hours.
The project is expectedto ease congestion when it is finished, but construction of a new Brevard Road/I-26 interchange a few hundred yardsto the south is supposed to begin aroundthe same time the longer merge lane is completed.
The state awarded a $47.5million contract for the interchangein early 2016. It is a "design-build" contract that allows the company doing the work to design details in conjunction with DOT before physical construction begins. That phase isfar enough along to allow workers to actually start moving dirt this fall.
Changes will include construction of new off- and on-ramps between Brevard Road (N.C. 191) and westbound I-26 that will be located just to the north of what's now Fred Anderson Toyota. That will spread apart traffic lights on either end of the Brevard Road bridge, decreasing the chances of congestion on Brevard Road or of traffic backing up onto I-26, Tipton said.
A short section of I-26 between the Pond Road bridge and a point a little south of the Brevard Road bridge will be widened to eight lanes, and there will be sidewalks and bike lanes on Brevard Road crossing I-26.
Construction is supposed to be completed before August 2019. Until then, well, yes, there could be some congestion.
Workers can't reduce the number of lanes on either I-26 or Brevard Road during daylight hours, but they can shift traffic and that's sometimes enough to slow people down.
"It's hard to say for sure how drivers will react," Tipton said.
I-26 in south Buncombe
People who take I-26 between I-40 and Hendersonville sometimes have lots and lots of time to closely study the rear end of the vehicle in front of them.
Traffic can slowto a walking pace during the busiest periods, often moves slowly during summer afternoons and can be no problem at all at other times.
"It's like the worst interstate ever," Candler residentHolly Laflin, who works in Biltmore Park, told a reporter last year."I hate driving on it. I would rather take back roads even if it's longer."
DOT plans to widen I-26 to eight lanes between I-40 and Exit 44, which is where U.S. 25 crosses the interstate south of Fletcher. Between that point and Exit 54 in East Flat Rock — where U.S. 25 veers off to the southwest toward Greenville, South Carolina — the road will be six lanes.
The DOT master plan says a design-build contract will be awarded in 2019 to widen I-26 between I-40 and the Buncombe-Henderson county line near Asheville Regional Airport. Construction will continue through 2022 or 2023 at an estimated total cost of $197 million.
Widening of the section from the county line south to Exit 44 is on the same schedule.
Letting the winning bidder finish the design of a project typically means actual construction doesn't begin until several months or even a year or more after the contract is awarded.
Work on other parts of I-26 in Henderson County isn't scheduled until 2026 or later.
I-26 Connector
Planners and public officials have now made many of the decisions needed to start work on what will be Asheville's largest public works project in decades.
Traffic on Interstate 240 will cross the French Broad River via a half circle that will loop north of Bowen Bridge. The road will run to the northwest of Westgate shopping center, leaving the center intact but changing access to it.
Bowen Bridge will become a city street connecting downtown and West Asheville with pedestrian and bicycle facilities in addition to lanes for cars and trucks.
Whenever DOT widens I-240 in West Asheville, it will become six lanes wide. The project also includes reconfiguring the I-26/I-40/I-240 interchange on the west side of the city near the WNC Farmers Market.
Construction of the new crossing of the river and the revamped interchange is to begin in 2020 and is likely to take four or five years.
But the state master plan, which runs through 2027, contains no money to buy land for or to build a wider I-240 in West Asheville in between. Thatleaves the door open for DOT to revisit later the decision to widen that part of the road to six lanes, although changing the plan mightcause a community uproar.
Some issues like what the bridge over the French Broad will look like, where noise walls will go and what the design of the Haywood Road interchange will be are still being discussed.
The current price tag for all three parts of the project is about $750 million.
U.S. 19-23 lanes
DOT is studying improvements to this key corridor through Woodfin and Weaverville and north toward the Madison County line with an eye toward adding lanes to parts of what is now a four-lane expressway.
The project will also involve changes to the roughly 12 miles of road between the Broadway exit near UNC Asheville and Exit 13 near the county line in Forks of Ivy to bring the road up to interstate standards. That could include making exit ramps longer and adjusting travel lanes. It would allow workers to remove signs reading "Future" from the road's current designation as "Future I-26."
Planners have not yet decided how many more lanes are needed and where, but traffic levels suggest it is more likely DOT will widen the road in Woodfin than in rural northern Buncombe County. A public hearing is planned for 2018 and DOT engineer Derrick Weaver says the agency will probably make decisions on the number of lanes in 2019.
DOT plans to award a contract for work on roughly two miles of highway between Broadway and U.S. 25 (Exit 23) in Woodifn in 2020, with work to be completed in 2024.
There's no telling when any of the rest of the work might be done. DOT's long-range plan says any other improvements would happen after 2027.
I-40/Liberty Road
This project is a little like the I-40/Blue Ridge Road interchange planned in Black Mountain in thatDOT hopes adding an interchange in one place will relieve traffic congestion in another.
The traffic choke point being targeted is I-40's Exit 44, where vehicles headed to or from West Asheville, Enka and Candler access Smoky Park Highway, numbered U.S. 19-23.
The new interchange will be located near the I-40 weigh station in western Buncombe County and would give Candler and Upper Hominy residents a way to get to and from I-40 without using Exit 44.In addition to the new interchange, there will be a new connection to Smoky Park Highway at its intersection with N.C. 151 and the alignment of Liberty Road will change.
DOT held a public hearing on the project in May and hopes to make a decision on where interchange ramps will be located this fall, saidAhmad Al-Sharawneh, a state engineer working on the project.
Construction is to begin in 2020 and run through 2023.
Sweeten Creek and Mills Gap roads
Lines of traffic form at this intersection in Skyland at busy times as the number of vehicles in the area has risen because of construction of single-family homes and apartment complexes in southern Buncombe County.
Widening more of Sweeten Creek Road has been in DOT plans for years and will remain in planning stages for years to come. Its master plan says construction to add lanes to the road between Rock Hill Road and its southern terminus at Hendersonville Road will begin in 2022 and end in 2024.
Al-Sharawneh said there is a good chance the wider road will have four lanes and a median but DOT has not yet made design decisions. Cost is estimated at $27 million.
DOT also plans upgrades to 1.9 miles of Mills Gap Road between Hendersonville Road and Weston Road. Construction of the $3.3 million project is scheduled to occur in 2020 and 2021.
