The Burton Street community faces down I-26 as the controversial interstate plans advance and criticisms about local and state government arise
Above: The sign for Burton Street’s community center. Photo by Emily Foley.
The Interstate 26 connector project has stirred debate for nearly 20 years between the city of Asheville, Buncombe County, local residents, activist groups and the North Carolina Department of Transportation. Concerns about the massive project are many, including fears of disconnecting neighborhoods while encouraging a negative “car culture,” a loss of political sovereignty and furthering the damage done by segregation. Over those decades, many plans have been put forward but faltered for one reason or another.
Last year, despite those remaining concerns, both Asheville City Council and the Buncombe County Board of Commissioners voted to go ahead with a plan suggested by an ad-hoc committee. In the city’s case, the vote on Asheville City Council was 6-1, with only Council member Cecil Bothwell in opposition, asserting that this would mean abandoning local plans that suited the area better.
Now, construction of a newly expanded I-26/I-240 interchange moves ahead, though slowly, as part of an $850 million overhaul slated to begin in 2021, with work on the portion affecting West Asheville lasting until 2024.
At the center of the fight is the fate of the Burton Street neighborhood, a tight-knit, historically African-American community an already hit hard by interstate construction, redlining and neglect over decades. In response, the community has organized, developed its own plans, worked hard to revive its local economy and institutions while turning its attention to the best way to survive the impact of I-26.
But despite repeated claims by local leaders that they’ll stand up for the neighborhood’s future, leaders say that they felt left out of the process, an exclusion that still continues today as pressures increase and the interstate promises to strike their neighborhood once again.
A highway runs through it
After years of wrangling, last year an ad-hoc group representing local governments and some organizations pushed forward a recommendation for a plan called Alternative 3C.
They weren’t the only group involved, however. The I-26 ConnectUs project, made up of representatives from the Asheville neighborhoods including West Asheville, EWANA, Burton Street, WECAN, Emma, and Montford formed to counter the impacts of this expansion, and hoped to lessen the blow.
According to the DOT, from 2009 to 2013, the number of vehicles on I-26 rose to 80,000 automobiles per day, creating traffic congestion. But amid local government claims it had reached consensus on the issue and that expansion was a necessity, a national report released last September entitled “Highway Boondoggles: Wasteful Money and America’s Transportation Future,” featured the I-26 expansion as one of 11 wasteful highway projects in the nation.
While four alternative plans are technically on the table, only two — alternatives 3C and 4B — have received major focus. The alternative 4B was proposed by the Asheville Design Center in 2007 as an option for neighborhoods, primarily Burton Street, that would leave them less damaged. In this plan, the highway would run underneath Patton Avenue and Patton Avenue would be reverted into a local street connecting West Asheville and Downtown. Despite widespread community support for 4B, DOT officials have claimed that they could not retain federal highway standards under this plan.
The alternative 3C, now endorsed by local governments, for Section B calls for the connector to run from the I-240 and Patton Avenue interchange in West Asheville, behind West Gate shopping center, across the French Broad River and connect to U.S. 19-23 near Montford’s Riverside Cemetery.
There are three different sections to this project under that plan. For each section, alternatives being considered will impact Asheville’s neighborhoods differently. They include: Section A expanding at Brevard Road to Haywood Road, Section B expanding north of Haywood Road and Section C expanding at the I-40 and I-26 interchange.
While 3C was endorsed last year by local government as a better alternative, a step necessary for it to advance further, things are far from final. Some local groups still oppose the plan, and its exact impacts won’t be known for some time, though more will be clear after an environmental impact study is finished in August.
For the Burton Street neighborhood, section B of alternative 3C would expand I-26 into a possible 8 lanes wiping out historical landmarks and homes, though the exact impacts of the expansion won’t be clear until plans are finalized. Local activists fear the further separation from the rest of Asheville may lead to more isolation for the community and leave residents either faced with gentrification or having to replant roots after decades of working to develop their community.
Third sacrifices
The Burton Street community, which endured long lasting impacts from racist government policies like redlining, now faces the threat of this connector and continued transportation sprawl for a second time since the I-240 was built.
Over the years, the neighborhood has mobilized extensively around the potential damage the connector will inflict on their reviving and close-knit neighborhood; under one plan proposed over the years, it was set to lose nearly 30 homes to the interstate. Local organizations the I-26 ConnectUs Project and the Asheville Design Center have offered their services to aid the Burton Street community during this issue.
DeWayne Barton, founder of the famed Burton Street Community Peace Garden and a leader in the neighborhood asserts that if $400 to 600 million is going into this project, Burton Street should be significantly financially subsidized for its sacrifices for external commerce, and major efforts should be made to keep the neighborhood together.
“My focus and concern is mainly on the effects of community. This community has been making a sacrifice for a roadway for the third time and none of those times highways have come through this area have they replaced infrastructure that benefits that particular community,” Barton said.
Since after World War II, highway development dominated over public transportation in order to support increased automobile traffic. According to a study from UCLA’s Civil Rights Project, these transportation policies targeted low-income populations historically causing a restriction to social and economic opportunities.
Talking to the Blade last year Richard Marciano, professor of information studies at the University of Maryland and an expert on redlining, noted that in Asheville “those neighborhoods that were singled out under redlining — and labelled as areas that should not be reinvested in — come out in the 1960s and ’70s policies selected as candidates for putting highways through them or for eminent domain.” Including Burton Street.
Government-backed interstate and urban renewal programs split more racially diverse communities and maintained segregation through this method. Today, the consequences of widespread development from decades ago still manifests in concentrated poverty and other problems throughout the country and locally.
Since the initial I-26 construction in the 60s and 70s, these consequences have continued. For decades Burton Street has been cut off from a direct link to downtown without car transportation. The community has seen increasing gentrification due to its location off of the interstate, limiting economic growth for citizens and further displacing neighborhood members. Additionally, the uncertainty over the fate of the interstate has, according to community leaders, left it in limbo.
Vivian Conley, chair of the Burton Street Community Association, tells the Blade that while the interstate is coming, parts of the situation remain, from her view, depressingly unchanged.
“I don’t see any difference from the tales we’ve been told for the last 20 years,” Conley said of the latest round of planning. “Three months down the road we were all disgusted again. We met with them [DoT] and said number one question everyone in the community has now is ‘when?’ and we got ‘five to ten years,’ that they were going back to do another environmental study.”
“I wish I’d gone into that field,” Conley says with a laugh. “I could have gotten rich just checking the environment around Burton Street.”
Tom Burnet, a former civil engineer, has worked with I-26 ConnectUs and used his background to try and plan different options for the I-26 expansion.
“Historically when they try to plan neighborhoods it goes through poorer or lower income neighborhoods and there’s a couple obvious reasons for that: one, there’s not as much political resistance, and two, it’s cheaper. So it tends to be the path of least resistance and social qualms may be ignored,” says Burnet, “but I think we can turn this from a negative change to an opportunity. Our challenge is to create a vision of what we do want and present that vision to DOT and we’ve been in the middle of presenting that now.”
Decades of concentrated poverty through highway segregation led to inequalities in education, healthcare, food sources and job opportunities as these transportation policies limit access to opportunities through direct and indirect effects. With this upcoming expansion looming for many years, locals organized to try and strategize to avoid more of these impacts, including a lack of transportation policies protecting certain communities or land use and local needs not being taken into account when building on these neighborhoods.
Working with I-26 ConnectUs and the Asheville Design Center, Burton Street residents developed their own alternative plan to try and avoid the devastating effects neighborhoods typically have faced when impacted by highway projects.
“Due to the threat of I-26, Burton Street developed its own community plan for what they would like to see done. We know it’s inevitable because it’s happened two times before. But like the six million dollar man he crashes and gets new arms and legs that are stronger. And if this city is economically benefiting from this expansion how do we help communities that have been struggling,” Barton said. “With this amount of investment how do we invest back into these communities so that they stand strong after the highway is built?”
While greenways and bike paths have been discussed Barton urges local leaders to note that these are not the resources that will ensure a vibrant community and says the alternatives developed by Burton Street have, frustratingly, not been seriously taken into account as local governments rolled forward with their plans. Before Council’s vote last year, a number of Burton Street leaders sharply criticized local government officials.
“Things like greenways and bike lanes were not in the top of that priority list,” Barton said of Burton Street’s needs and plans. “For those communities who will be affected the most to come up with a plan of what they would like to see, because they know it’s inevitable, and for the whole city, county, and state to ignore that plan is the issue that bothers me the most.”
Julie Mayfield, co-director of MountainTrue (and now a Council candidate), has played multiple parts in the development of I-26 plans, both as part of I-26 ConnectUs and the ad-hoc group of local leaders that crafted the alternative 3C endorsement.
“Increase in property values and gentrification are other problems that these neighborhoods. If I-26 goes through and direct bike lanes to downtown are created it’s going to become more attractive as well. Often this leads to neighborhood residents being displaced,” Mayfield said.
Council and the Board of Commissioners voted to endorse the plan brought forward by the ad-hoc committee but notably I-26 ConnectUs, despite Mayfield’s involvement, opposed it. So did the Asheville Design Center.
Acquisition of property would begin in 2018 but Vice Mayor Marc Hunt and Burnet both expect that Asheville will have citizens who attempt to fight the state’s use of eminent domain, leading to lawsuits and court settlements.
“You know and we talked to city council about a plan we could create, not you, we create to take those people affected and buy existing property that already exists in the neighborhood and build houses so that they stay in the neighborhood and they don’t have to be ripped out and thrown in a whole different community not familiar with,” Barton said.
I-26 ConnectUs Project states that a final, preferred alternative would be to not remove highway traffic from the Jeff Bowen Bridges and that the city and county advocate for a new project that would allow Patton Avenue and the bridges to become a continuous boulevard from West Asheville into downtown.
“It’s funny cause we’re a green local city who is putting all this money into environmentally harmful and outsourced commerce hurting our neighborhoods,” Barton said. “Why are we not promoting alternatives of transportation and infrastructure that aren’t unhealthy for citizens?”
Some leaders involved in the discussions around the connector say city government has been responsive and others, such as Barton and Conley, say their suggestions have largely fallen on deaf ears.
Hunt, Asheville City Council’s point person on the issue and one of the architects of its endorsement, claims that such confusion is understandable.
“We’re always eager to reach out to people. It’s hard to knock on every door and inform all those who haven’t been to public meetings or been reading up on the project. It’s very difficult for every person who might be concerned to engage. In issues such as this it is easy for people who are very concerned to not feel included in the discussion as well,” said Hunt.
Hunt says transparency is always a priority in projects that will directly affect citizens and that engaging with community groups, including iConnectUs, to push for pathways connecting neighborhoods is a direct suggestion from these neighborhoods. According to Barton and Mayfield infrastructure post-project is another issue to be tackled and necessary for community members who feel that rebuilding from within is more important than greenways and bike paths.
But Conley believes that the overwhelming majority of Council endorsing the 3C plan last year sent a stark signal to Burton Street about how much they really cared about their interests.
“There was only one Council member there [Bothwell] out of all the City Council people there who voted to accept the plan that the Asheville Design Center designed for the people here in the community, the one that we liked, where it wouldn’t be so invasive,” she says. “That let me know where they stood. They all voted to go along.”
‘Car culture’
“When these highways go in they divide neighborhoods and breaks them up into parts. All this connectivity and neighborliness goes away. It creates what we call ‘car culture’ where people don’t connect since they can just get in their car and have no interaction. Just thinking in terms of cars and motor vehicles is just one aspect to the transportation problem,” Burnet said.
Car culture booms throughout America and according to Paul Graves-Brown’s From Highway to Superhighway, the impact spans beyond the obvious environmental and material impact to show declines in the ability to socially interact and increased obesity.
Existing roads will need to remain until construction is done to allow people to travel, meaning there remains a large footprint of unusable land in the middle of town. City government hopes that once the construction is done Patton can return to a local street, however, citizens fear this new construction leaves room to place Asheville an automotive city during that time. In other words, a city that due to highway overlap private transportation becomes a necessity.
City government claims to be aware of these concerns and plans to connect the city through bikeways and greenways along the 12-foot concrete walls that would divide the interstate and surrounding neighborhoods.
Hunt claims he wants to lessen the blow to neighborhoods and possibly create positive outcomes from the expansion by using it as a stepping-stone to eventually make all of Asheville bike and pedestrian friendly.
“How do you put it through the middle of town knowing that it’s going to be a large scale project and offset the tradeoffs and accommodate the people that you can?”
The Haywood road bridge would be wider and have bike lanes and generous sidewalks. It would help reshape Haywood road so that it’s a more walkable, complete street. Meaning that it would a street that is designed to accommodate all users and not just automobiles. That’s a really big deal to us in this project. We want people to be able to get around safely on bikes. Our goal is to eventually have the whole city to be bike-friendly,” Hunt said.
Barton believes the need to get goods to places like South Carolina and Virginia aren’t vital reasons to threaten local infrastructure. However, because the expansion projects to promote external commerce, Hunt says that the funding will be mostly federal since it is a project for national interest.
The elephant in the room
“I think city council has been very responsive to the concerns of neighborhoods that stand to be impacted. City council voted for alternative 4B [in 2009], which would have had the least impact on Burton Street showing that they are taking citizen outcry into consideration. The city has been very conscious of being protective of its neighborhoods,” Mayfield said.
But despite city leaders endorsing 4B years ago, the alternative 3C has been more widely endorsed as the widespread favorite by DOT and therefore, has taken the reins as the most likely plan to be adopted.
“DOT is a large organization and many different parts but they’ve changed some. Now they have the complete streets policy and looks at all the modes of transportation and not just cars. They’ve been pretty receptive. I think if they’re presented with concrete plans it makes it a lot easier for them to know what the people want and with the increased momentum of these neighborhood plans it’s become easier to work with both the government and the DOT,” Burnet said.
Hunt claims that the N.C. Constitution makes it difficult for municipalities to speak out against decisions imposed at the state level, Asheville in particular suffers from this as a smaller city in a state lacking home rule, which allows municipalities more control over what happens in local areas.
“The DOT has a habit of coming in and doing transportation projects in a big, bold, ugly way, you know Patton Avenue is so overbuilt and designed for cars to go fast that it’s not a friendly livable street and that’s what we’re trying to avoid,” Hunt claims. “However, in political leadership there are many different types of people. Some look for the ideal outcome in their mind. That person is probably never going to get his or her way. In this instance there are some who say ‘don’t build this interstate, period’ and that most likely will not happen.”
Council has been questioned as to why they would support the expansion despite voices opposing the project. Last year, Alternative 3C, costing $230 million, was added to a list of priority projects in NC but Hunt claims nothing is set in stone.
“Endorsing is a very general term. It wasn’t a resolution we just came up with off the top of our heads. It’s a highly conditional expression of support that specifies, if this project can evolve in a certain way, then this city council could be okay with the project,” said Hunt.
Despite the state’s power in deciding the interstate, Hunt hopes Ashevillians eventually benefit from the expansion and that local government can help carry out citizen interest under the DOT decision.
“Something is probably going to be done so instead of trying to fight the inevitable, let’s see if we can benefit. There is some chance it might not get built but I’m trying to get the best results and prepare,” Hunt said.
The 50-year wait
But back in her home, Conley says she sees far less cause for optimism than city leaders. Rather than a full partnership or “best results,” she sees intermittent attention, at best, from the city and a community with many pressures and many needs unmet.
Conley notes that while Neighborhood Coordinator Marsha Stickford comes to the association meetings and she’s talked to Mayfield a few times about the latest I-26 plans. But she says a major gap remains between the rhetoric of city leaders about their support for the area and their actions.
“That’s all we’ve heard from them, otherwise we’ve just been moving along,” she says.
The current plans are not as invasive as some that have been proposed over the years — at one point in 2008 the Alternative 3 plan called for demolishing 25 homes and leaving 15 more facing a sound wall, a number that many leaders asserted would have destroyed the community — but the area is still on track to lose a row of homes on Burton Street, including Conley’s, see a neighboring church demolished and face a retaining wall.
“I don’t think it would be over 10 homes that would go,” she said. “The retaining wall would be in the neighborhood of where my house is.” She worries that would further hurt the community.
At this point, she says, the focus of Burton Street has shifted to the best way to deal with the impact in the face of these daunting odds.
“We’re ok with them going ahead and getting it done, our main concern is that we’re paid fairly and treated fairly in the process,” she says. “Five or 10 years down the road is just not acceptable.”
One hope of Burton Street leaders was to obtain funds to relocate community members facing the loss of their homes to new sites nearby. But Conley says that the gentrifictation of the area, with more expensive homes going up on the vacant land remaining is making her increasingly pessimistic about that option.
“Every scrap of land where someone that was living here may have moved to they’re putting houses up like crazy,” she says. “Any of us who just wanted to move, there’s nowhere left.”
Also, while development is increasing and I-26 is coming, Conley observes that the neighborhood still faces a lack of sidewalks and other necessary infrastructure, something the neighborhood is clamoring for for years, leading to issues with safety, parking and traffic.
So she sees her community hit hard by multiple pressures: I-26, gentrification, low wages. In her view, the time has come for the city to take the Burton Street plan far more seriously.
Conley also sees city resources and grant dollars being poured into the River Arts District and other “innovation districts” while she believes Burton Street remains relatively neglected, an issue that’s lasted for decades.
“There is not anything on our plan that has been implemented,” she says. “We’ve been asking for 50 years to have something done out here and we don’t see any signs of it being done.”
—
Emily Foley is an Asheville-based writer focusing on issues including gentrification, education, discrimination and economic struggles. Her work has been published in The Laurel of Asheville, the Blue Banner and the Burton Street newsletter.
Some reporting for this piece was contributed by Blade editor David Forbes
The Asheville Blade is entirely funded by its readers. If you like our work, donate directly to us on Patreon. Questions? Comments? Email us.