News

THE NEXT BIG THING: Balfour Parkway maps debut Tuesday

By Bill Moss, Published: February 23, 2018

Renee Kumor recalled the first time she heard Jon Laughter describe a new version of the Clear Creek Connector, which had died amid an uproar from businesses and neighbors.

Many local leaders involved in transportation planning were demoralized at the defeat of the proposed east-west artery, which would have whisked cars from I-26 to Asheville Highway and Haywood Road, bypassing downtown.
Laughter, an engineer and Hendersonville City Council member, was undeterred. He sketched out a new route that would accomplish the same thing, without destroying a new office center and a city park and provoking the politically active voters in the retirement communities centered on Haywood Road at Blythe Street. The Balfour Parkway, he called it.
“Had we done it the next day, no one would have said anything,” Kumor said.
She meant that the path back then, 18 years ago, was sparsely developed. But one way to find out just how developed a piece of land has become is to draw a line through it signifying a new road.
The NCDOT has done that and for the first time residents will get a look at just where the Balfour Parkway would run. The corridor for several potential paths is 1,000 feet wide — four times as wide as the roadway’s planned width of 250 feet.
“It’s going to get people’s attention because it’s going to impact their lives I think,” said Henderson County Commissioner Bill Lapsley, who chairs the French Broad MPO, the regional transportation planning agency. “It’s a brand new road as compared to widening Highway 25 or 176. Those were improvements of an existing road. Balfour is a brand new road in a new location and we haven’t had that since Four Seasons Boulevard or the completion of I-26. So it’s a big deal.”

Controlled access highway
The controlled access parkway would be built in three segments — U.S. 64 East (near Walmart) to I-26, I-26 to Asheville Highway and Asheville Highway to N.C. 191, which is also scheduled to be four-laned. Only the I-26 to Asheville Highway is funded, with right-of-way acquisition scheduled for 2022 and construction in 2024.
In a process that’s reminiscent on a more limited scale to the Duke Energy plan to run high-powered transmission lines through the county, the NCDOT has notified property owners within the 1,000-foot corridor that their land could be needed for right-of-way. As with the Duke Energy proposal, that wide net will capture many landowners who probably won’t be affected, depending on what route the NCDOT ultimately chooses.
During a recent meeting, county Transportation Advisory Committee members expressed the hope that residents learn about the Balfour Parkway early. Even though projects like the Kanuga Road widening, U.S. 64 improvements through Laurel Park and the Highland Lake Road widening have been in the planning stages for years, residents were stunned and upset when they received notification that the projects were coming up.
“In the end I don’t think it probably will impact 100 property owners directly,” Lapsley said. “It’s doing the right thing.”
Traffic engineering studies and growth indicate that road improvements are needed. Now, more than in the past, Lapsley said, the state is funding highway projects based on demonstrated need.
As governor, Pat McCrory imposed a rating system based on traffic counts, congestion and safety “‘so the selection process for projects is a lot less political than it was 10 years ago, which as it turned out has been favorable to Henderson County because our projects get the points and are justified.”

Need identified in the 1960s
Jim Crafton, who spent 15 years on the Transportation Advisory Committee, has seen Henderson County wait while state road money went to urban areas.
“I think it’s very much needed,” he said of the Balfour Parkway. “If you go back to 1967, the DOT indicated that a northern bypass was still the most useful thing we could do for transportation. The Clear Creek Connector went by the wayside. Then Jon Laughter came up with the design for that years ago. I hope it comes to fruition. Certainly it will take the traffic off Church and Seventh (U.S. 64). Now all the traffic has to go through the center of town.”
He’s seen residents rise up against the projects that are close to construction.
“You’ve always got the obstacle of what’s there now,” he said. “What do have to do to create the new space for the road and that’s always a challenge.”
But Crafton is not sure that the Balfour Parkway will generate as much as opposition as the widening projects have.
“Once people get a look at where it’s supposed to go and an idea of where it’s going as it relates to them they may or may not have a lot to say about it,” he said. “There’s opposition to the roundabouts the DOT is promoting in town. Sometimes the greatest opposition comes from people that live there but they overlook that a lot of people have to travel through there. The DOT is charged with providing adequate and safe ways for travel.”
Laughter, the father of the Balfour Parkway, gets little notice now. But he’s happy to see the project move closer to reality.
“I think it’s a little bit north of where I anticipated it being, but I don’t see any problem with that,” he said. “I envisioned it being 100 percent controlled access and that was talked about in Clear Creek. I think that’s important but I don’t know what the DOT is looking at. It would be a fast way to get to N.C. 191. It’s not anything you’d want a bicycle on. If you’re doing 70 mph and you hit a bicycle you probably wouldn’t know it. We need something that will move traffic east and west.”
Although Laughter doesn’t sound like he’s eager to take credit, he appreciates the fact that some people remember that he first sketched out — and named — an alternative to the doomed Clear Creek Connector.
“It is a big deal to me,” he said. “I’m just trying to live long enough to see it come to fruition.”

* * * * *

The NCDOT is hosting a public meeting on the Balfour Parkway from 4 to 7 p.m. Tuesday, Feb. 27, at the Cascades Mountain Resort, 201 Sugarloaf Road. For information click here  or contact Jennifer Fuller at 919-707-6050 or jmfuller@ncdot.gov.