Let's Finish the Damn Road

I've lived in Asheville long enough to watch the I-26 Connector project get kicked down the road for decades. At this point, the delays aren’t just frustrating--they're absurd. Everyone knows the highway is needed. Everyone's been stuck in traffic because of the bottlenecks. Everyone's watched Asheville grow while our infrastructure sits in limbo, outdated and incomplete.

And yet, here we are again, watching a small but vocal group of opponents grab the spotlight because they want to be "against freeways." They've made this project their personal theater--framing it as a moral stand, as if opposing a long-planned connector somehow makes them guardians of Asheville's soul. It's not about traffic or engineering anymore. It’s about identity. It's about performance.

Let’s be clear: this city needs the I-26 Connector. It needed it 30 years ago. The vast majority of residents want it done. They want the improved safety, the improved traffic flow, the long-term benefit that comes from finally finishing what's been dragging on since the late '80s. They're tired of the noise--not the construction noise, but the political noise, the posturing, the endless design charrettes that pretend we’re still at square one.

Is the flyover ideal? Maybe not. But after decades of delay, a plan that shaves 15 months off construction and saves $190 million is hard to ignore. Perfect should not be the enemy of done. Especially when "perfect" is always shifting, always being redefined by those who want to keep the conversation going forever.

There's a point where civic input becomes civic obstruction. And I think we've reached that point.

This isn't about silencing community voices. It’s about recognizing that consensus was reached years ago--and revisiting it endlessly doesn't improve the project, it paralyzes it.

So yes. Let's listen to concerns. Let's improve what can still be improved. But let's also be honest:

It's time to finish the damn road.