Neighborhood Sidewalk Program

Happening Now

Wood Avenue

The City will install a new 6’ monolithic sidewalk on the west side of Wood Avenue. The goal of the project is part of the Neighborhood Sidewalks Program meant to expand the pedestrian transportation network. Increase pedestrian safety and comfort by filling gaps in the pedestrian network. Provide transit access and ADA-compliant access to destinations, including residential and commercial (retail, groceries, entertainment, and employment opportunities).

Community Meeting

Wednesday, July 31

5-7 p.m.

Oakley Park Shelter

Project Manager

Vinnie Sullivan, PE, CFM
828-230-6312 cell

Background

In 2014, Asheville City Council allotted funding specifically for building new sidewalks in neighborhoods. On October 13, 2015, the council adopted a Neighborhood Sidewalk Policy for prioritizing construction of neighborhood sidewalks. The policy states which streets will be considered for new neighborhood sidewalks, and what makes one neighborhood sidewalk a priority over another. The policy includes initial considerations like proximity to a transit stop, to community destinations like parks, schools, libraries and grocery stores, whether the zoning is low or high density, whether there are concentrations of low income households or households without a motor vehicle, and safety. These criteria are applied to all potential neighborhood sidewalk projects to create the lists referred to below. There is also a set of secondary criteria that are applied to the top-ranking projects from the initial consideration. These things must be evaluated in the field, like the availability of existing or donated space to build a sidewalk, whether the sidewalk would connect to the larger transportation network, whether there is already a sidewalk on one side of the street, and whether the estimated project cost will fit within the money available.

You can find out how your street ranks after the initial criteria have been applied by checking the list of scores in Ranked Scores or the list of scores in Alphabetical Scores. The potential project names might vary a bit from your street name, but should be clear. You can search the documents by using your “find” feature (usually CTRL-F) in the document to open a search box. There are also two maps showing the potential projects, one map with the project names – Potential Project Map and one map with surrounding street names – Potential Project Map (2). You can zoom in and out within the map to look closely.