Abstract:
The Beaucatcher Mountain tunnel adequately served Asheville residents and area travelers for a number of years. However, with increasing population, together with a growth in tourism, the tunnel was becoming a bottleneck. In 1960, Asheville hired a consulting firm to develop an overall transportation plan for the metropolitan area. This article is a chronology of the Beaucatcher Mountain controversy over the last 13 years and helps to explain why roads take so long to build.