The overpass walkway which extends across I-240 East/West has been closed to foot traffic since 1994.  Photo: Urban News

Charlton Owens, stepfather of the latest victim to be killed trying to cross traffic on I-240 West from Hillcrest Apartments, is spearheading an effort to get the overpass walkway to the public housing complex re-opened.

by Johnnie Grant

Anthony Ray Gilmore, 25, was killed June 16 around 9:30 p.m. while trying to cross a section of I-240 near the Smoky Park Bridge. Owens said his son almost made it across the highway. “When he was hit, he was killed instantly,” Owens said. No charges we filed against the driver.

The bridge was closed in 1994 as part of an effort to reduce crime in the Hillcrest public housing complex. At that time, police said people were using the overpass to make illegal drug transactions, and as an escape route when police arrived at Hillcrest to make drug arrests.

Two years after the bridge was closed, in 1996, William Webb was killed trying to cross I-240. In 1998 William “DJ” Scarborough was hit by a truck and dragged approximately 50 feet in the same vicinity. At that time Scarborough’s death sparked debate over whether the bridge should continue to remain closed.

Asheville City Councilman Cecil Bothwell says, “While I understand that the bridge was closed due to concern about drug trafficking and other crimes, I don’t think there is any evidence that closure affected that traffic.”

To Bothwell, the problem is not simply the issue of small-time sales in the housing complex. “The drug problem,” he says, “won’t be solved until we end the war on drugs, which has driven up prices, increased the potency of street drugs, pushed people into use of more dangerous substances like crystal meth and crack cocaine, spawned gangs, created a shooting war in Mexico, and funneled billions of dollars in cash across our borders.”

The feelings of the residents are mixed. Some say the bridge was encouraging crime, and want it to remain closed, while others, in the area on the south side of the overpass, would like to be able to walk to Westgate from their side of the bridge.

Bothwell notes that Asheville Z-Link, a volunteer sidewalk restoration effort that he started along with Asheville PARC, has cleared the sidewalk that connects to the bridge and to the stairway down to Roberts Street in the Chicken Hill neighborhood. “Even without the bridge, that is a useful sidewalk for pedestrians and cyclists,” he says. He points out that the pedestrian walkways over 240 and on the Smoky Park Bridge can offer access in both directions, from Hillcrest and from the River District, to downtown and to Westgate Shopping Center. “If the residents of Hillcrest and Chicken Hill want the bridge opened, I believe it should happen,” he says.

Gene Bell, Director of the Asheville Housing Authority, concurs, with one caveat. “If the residents as a whole prefer that it be opened, and the Asheville Police Department agrees, then it will be re-opened,” he said. A subcommittee of the Asheville City Council is presently looking into the case.