<< Back 12/17/03 Highway design a mix of three, four and five lanes By Becky Johnson The $10 million widening of the Old Asheville Highway will be completed by December 2004, but the hodge-podge of orange barrels and rerouted lanes make it hard to visualize just what the final road will look like. Designing the Old Asheville Highway in the late1990s was a controversial deal. Haywood County sided with landowners along the road who lobbied for a five-lane design similar to Russ Avenue the length of the project. The town of Waynesville and smart growth advocates lobbied for a four-lane boulevard design with sidewalks and planted medians. The Department of Transportation came up with a compromise. For those who don’t remember the great debate, here’s a refresher of what the road is supposed to look like when completed. ° Three lanes from Waynesville town limits to Ratcliffe Cove. ° A one-lane roundabout at the Ratcliffe Cove intersection. The roundabout will have four roads coming into it like an intersection, but instead of coming to a complete stop, motorists slow down, pull into the roundabout and then turn out of the roundabout on the other side. ° Four-lanes with a grass and wildflower median from the roundabout to the intersection of Francis Farm Road. The median will taper down into a left turn lane at the intersection with Nesbitt Street and again at Francis Farm Road. ° Five lanes — substituting the median for a middle turn lane — from Francis Farm Road to Howell Mill Road. The road will be six lanes at the intersection with Junaluska Elementary, allowing two lanes for through traffic, a lane for left turns and a lane for right turns. ° Four lanes with planted median from Howell Mill Road to the Waynesville Industrial Park/High-Tech Center. ° Five lanes from the Waynesville Industrial Park/High-Tech Center to Lowe’s. ° There will be a sidewalk running the length of the road from town to Howell Mill Road on the left side of the road if traveling from town toward Lowe’s. ° There will be no designated bike lanes, but the outside lane in both directions will be two-feet wider than a normal lane — 14 feet instead of 12 — to allow for bikes. The DOT will not be painting a white stripe on the road to designate the bike lane, however. ° There will be three stoplights — at the entrance to Junaluska School, the intersection of Howell Mill Road and the entrance to Waynesville Industrial Park/High Technology Center.