Tonight, Asheville City Council voted to reopen a pedestrian bridge that had been closed for years. The bridge spans I-240 connecting Hillcrest, a public housing development, to Roberts Street, a recovering neighborhood. Residents of Hillcrest petitioned to have the bridge reopened after a third pedestrian was fatally struck attempting to cross the busy interchange. The victim’s father and a lady who saw the body in the road addressed council.
Trepidation was obvious in the warning voices of Mayor Terry Bellamy and Housing Authority Director Gene Bell as they recalled the daily routine of violent crime that occurred on and around the bridge while it was open. Neighbors from the other side of the bridge spoke of body parts and gunshot victims. Bell mentioned one time when Hillcrest had to go in lock-down for ten days because of rampant violence. Bell has a great reputation for enforcing zero-tolerance for shenanigans in public housing and outsmarting criminals and upstarts. Unfortunately, he recommended giving the people what they wanted.
Jan Davis, who has lived and worked in the area, was the only member of council with enough courage to vote against the voice of the people for their own good. He said he felt for the father, but nothing council was going to do that night was going to bring him back. Bellamy suspected even if the bridge were opened, a lot of pedestrians would still take the most obvious route across the highway.
There was also a green side to the story. People wanted to open the bridge for a bike trail. Costs were estimated and itemized for bringing the bridge up to snuff, but no mention was made of making some kind of ramp. Evidently, nobody saw any safety issues associated with making cyclists tote their bikes down two flights of stairs. (See p. 9.)
