I read the latest interview with outgoing Mayor Patrick Fitzsimmons in the Oct. 1 Mountain Xpress [“‘This Town Matters’: Mayor Ends Tenure With Eyes on Weaverville’s Future”]. No joke that the town’s population has nearly doubled in recent years! Everywhere you look, huge developments are going up, which includes farther out where I live: apartment complexes. condos and subdivisions. Reems Creek Road is turning into a stream of them headed out. The top of Monticello Road has been ruined. Farmland and woodlands laid waste by the bulldozers forever.
And for it all, it never seems to be enough. In the 35 years I have lived in this area, I have watched it turn into bumper-to-bumper traffic. And it’ll worsen as the next complexes and the hospital near Monticello Road are completed. I can’t imagine that intersection with ambulances trying to get through. Traffic already backs way up now. (For the record, I don’t oppose the hospital. Maybe the location.)
Weaverville used to be my quiet place to run errands and enjoy, as Asheville got too busy and packed. Now I fear it’ll look like South Asheville before long, an area I avoid like the plague. Instead, now I take more of my business to Madison County…