Asheville Politics

1. Tell us something about your transportation habits. How do you get around Asheville?
My primary mode of transportation is my Prius. I also bike and walk and very occasionally ride the bus. When I worked at Mountain Xpress I routinely biked to work. Since I have returned to construction contracting the bike isn’t really practical, but whenever possible I use the Prius rather than my pickup truck (reserved for major tools and materials tasks.)

2. What do you think is the single greatest reason Asheville residents don’t use their cars less? What would you do as a council member to address this problem?
Probably the single biggest reason Ashevillians don’t use other modes of transportation is habit. We have been building an auto-based lifestyle since the 1950s and we are long accustomed to working, shopping and living in places distant from one another, as well as the convenience of coming and going at will. Secondarily, the relatively low availability of transit has been a problem, in terms of frequency of service and hours of operation. All of this has been fed to a great extent by federal subsidy of oil which has kept gasoline prices well below world norms.

3. Even if you haven’t held elected office, you’ve likely been an active member of Asheville’s community. Please describe one thing you’ve done to make our city friendlier to walkers, cyclists or bus riders.
The most important contribution I’ve made to the Asheville Transit System was as managing editor of the Mountain Xpress when I created a series called “The Big Ride,” in which I sent reporters out to ride each route and write up their experiences to encourage ridership. I participated as a rider/writer myself. I believe we did a creditable job or raising general community awareness.

4. As a council member, what would you do to expedite implementation of the city’s Bicycle Master Plan?
I believe the Bicycle Master Plan is an essential part of our future transit system. Much more quickly than most people are willing to believe the effect of post-peak oil is going to convulse our transportation system. The better we prepare now the easier the transition will be as bicycling shifts rapidly from a green choice to an economic necessity for many citizens.

5. Do you support the Transit Master Plan? What, if any, changes might you propose?
One missing piece in the proposed Transit Master Plan is an effort to convince Asheville’s major employers to adopt staggered start times. If, for example, Mission Hospital could be convinced to move its shift schedule by an hour, it should be possible to use satellite parking and dedicated express busses to the campus. This could apply to City/County employees as well. And, of course, if we expand office space for city government we should look at either telecommuting or clustered office centers to put homes and jobs within walking/biking distance of each other.

6. What role do you think greenways play in Asheville’s future?
Greenways help make urban life attractive and offset the sense of crowding imposed by our necessary future density. They are essential.

7. The proposed I-26 Alternative 3, which has won the endorsement of the Asheville Chamber of Commerce and the Buncombe County Commission, would effectively prevent pedestrians and cyclists from crossing the Smoky Park bridge. Which proposed connector do you support and why?
I support the general concept of the original Asheville Design Center proposal for the I-26 Connector, with the Interstate ducking under Patton permitting it to be a dedicated, local, urban boulevard. The NCDOT purposefully distorted the ADC plan to come up with what they call 4-B. The design assumptions and resulting flaws in 4-B are too extensive to explore here, but briefly my position is this. 1) There is no compelling argument for 8 lanes. Auto use has dropped every month for 18 months nationwide. There is some evidence that we have passed the peak of auto ownership and use in this country. Trucking will decrease rapidly as freight traffic returns to the rails (which it must do to meaningfully confront climate change/carbon emission reduction). 2) There is no reason to design a 65 mph highway through Asheville, other cities are happy to have 55 mph thoroughfares and I-240 is not a problem with the 50 mph limit through the city. 3) As a reporter I covered the story in the mid-90s when NCDOT was telling us that Asheville would experience grid-lock if we didn’t have 8 lanes by 2002. NCDOT has demonstrated that it is incapable of accurately projecting our transit needs and I will resist their current proposals in every way possible. Every way.

8. Many funding needs pertaining to alternative transportation are deemed nonessential in times of economic crisis. Which, if any, capital improvements to facilitate multi-modal transit would you defend during a budget crunch?
If money were tight I would protect routes and schedules for transit and introduce strong incentives for city employees to use transit (to boost ridership, for example in a real crunch reduce pay rates but offer free bus passes, to justify diversion of funds to bus drivers/fuel)s. I would continue restriping to create bike lanes where there is adequate pavement width already. I have offered a related plan to create a two-tiered meter system, restriping street parking in some areas for the increasingly common smaller vehicles, to create more spaces within the currently available curb length, and cheaper parking for small cars. This is much cheaper than building parking decks and accomplishes the same short-term goal, of increased availability, while rewarding drivers of more efficient vehicles. (I have some specific ideas about other areas of city government where I would cut spending first, but that’s beyond the scope of this question.)

9. What is the most compelling reason to improve transportation options n Asheville?
Global climate change is a local problem everywhere and we must address it as quickly as we possibly can. Now that we are passing peak oil production we can expect repeated and chaotic spiking of prices with a gradual trend upward which will help move people into public transit. Last summer’s prices were not an anomaly, the current low prices are simply a result of the economic crash. As the world economy climbs the competition for oil will escalate. We absolutely need a transit system that is good enough to pick up immediate demand and resilient enough to expand as the oil economy and cap&trade carbon change our relationship to petroleum-based automobiles.

{ 0 comments }