Clear A Path with the Z Link!!!

I spent a few hours Saturday morning getting down and dirty with the  Z-Link: a volunteer community organization that is reclaiming sidewalks that have fallen into disrepair.  This particular section is a vital connector sidewalk that links downtown Asheville with Chicken Hill and the River Arts District.  This is a spot I have been curious about since I moved to Asheville so I jumped at the chance to pitch in with the excavation and explore the area.  Many people aren't even aware the path is there. 

Z-Link has spent the last four Saturday mornings working on the project and has made fantastic progress.  But what is really going on here is more than just re-opening a path for cyclists and dog walkers, it's a spotlight action, an effort to call attention to the much more serious needs of the immediate communities adjacent to this pathway on both sides of the highway.  

The sidewalk is technically the responsibility of the NC DOT, however, since the closure of the pedestrian bridge in 1994 to the Hillcrest Apartments, ostensibly to stem a wave of crime and drug traffic occurring on, over, and around the bridge, the DOT has neglected their maintenance of the area. Since then the entire sidewalk area and path access points have been in steep decline.   Some see it more as an action of containment for the low-income residents of Hillcrest whose only crime is not being able to afford to move out of Hillcrest.  It was acknowledged amongst the folks helping out yesterday, that cutting back brush, picking up trash, shoveling sidewalks and throwing open the locked gate on the 240 Pedestrian Bridge are really just the tip of the iceberg for needs in this area.  As Whit Rylee observed, pointing across the highway to Hillcrest, "Those are our neighbors over there." 

The Housing Authority for the City of Asheville operates the Hillcrest Apartments.  The apartments are physically isolated by location, nearly surrounded by the 240/19/23/26 expressway exchanges, the river and a cliff face, 8ft. wrought iron gates and fences and a regular minimum-security containment and curfew practices on low-income families in Downtown Asheville.  Continued outreach and expanded use of this path by the entire community, coupled with revitalization projects in the Chicken Hill neighborhood are going to be the beginnings of positive change for this entire area of Asheville.

There will be one more Saturday morning of work on the sidewalk for the Z-Link on July 17th.  A crowd of people would make really light work of the last of the debris that needs to be cleared here.  Stop by and give an hour out of your Saturday morning next week in exchange for a better Asheville and a nicer place to walk and ride.