The Swannanoa Greenway: More Than a Trail | Bradley Spiegel & Carol Groben

In this episode, I sit down with Bradley Spiegel (community planner at Equinox) and Carol Groben (Friends and Neighbors of Swannanoa) to unpack the story behind the proposed Swannanoa Greenway. The idea reaches back to flood planning after the 2004 storms and a 2010 greenway feasibility study that never turned into construction. Helene changed everything: the river’s path, the community’s priorities, and the stakes. Now the question is not just “Where should a trail go?” but “How do we give the Swannanoa River room to flood without destroying homes, businesses, and community spaces?”

We get specific about what resilience can look like on the ground: riparian buffer restoration, green infrastructure like bioswales, and targeted flood storage that slows stormwater and reduces risk downstream. We also talk connectivity and everyday safety, linking neighborhoods, schools, parks, and the US 70 business corridor. Along the way, we highlight key partners like Connect Buncombe and RiverLink, plus the momentum from a $100,000 Great Trails State Grant and the bigger vision of connecting into the Fonta Flora State Trail.

If you care about greenways, trail planning, stormwater management, flood mitigation, or the future of Western North Carolina’s outdoor economy, this conversation is for you. 

Mike Andress
Host, Exploration Local
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mike@explorationlocal.com

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Transcript

Greenway As Recovery Strategy

SPEAKER_00 0:00

When most people hear the word green light, they think of a trail. But what if a green light could do more than that? What if it could help a community become more resilient after a flood? What if it could create safer connections between neighborhoods, schools, parks, and businesses? And what if a trail project could also be part of a community's long-term recovery? In this episode, private speed is the story behind the proposed part of the greenway, and why a project that's been discussed for years has taken on new meetings after 15 cleaning. We talked about the history of Greenway cleaning, earlier statement, and the latest feed ability that is focused on the community. And this is the most important benefits of green players. We encourage you to go. Let's go. I'm really

Meet The Greenway Partners

SPEAKER_00 1:49

excited to have Bradley Siegel with me today, and as well as Carol Groben. I really love for the listeners to kind of understand who each of y'all are, what organization you're coming from, and why you all decided collectively as a partnership to really dig your teeth into the Swantanoa Greenway. Bradley, let's start with you, Bud.

SPEAKER_03 2:10

I recently moved to Swantanoa, well, before Helene, and immediately when I when we bought a house here, I was like, I I want to get involved in local initiatives that are happening to for quality of life as a community planner at Equinox. So I found friends and neighbors of Swantanoa. I reached out to Carol and Megan. What was most intriguing to me was the initial planning underway for the sidewalk for Swantanoa campaign and the greenway planning that had started. I'm all about pedestrian connectivity and outdoor recreation and economic development. So just it was a perfect fit for me to plug in my professional skills in the grass on the grassroots side.

SPEAKER_00 2:51

That's great. And on the professional side, you're in community planning with Equinox, right?

SPEAKER_01 2:56

Correct.

SPEAKER_00 2:57

Nice. And Carol, how about you?

SPEAKER_01 2:59

I have uh lived in Swannanoa for 27 years. Currently, I'm I'm mostly involved with three different parts in Swanoa. The the organization that Brad mentioned is Friends and Neighbors of Swanoa. It's also known as FANS. It's been around for actually 20 years, and that organization is the one that's spearheading the Swanoa Greenway Feasibility Study. I'm also serving on the Buncombe County Swannanoa Small Area Plan Steering Committee. And that is a significant planning effort that the county undertook. It was actually something that had been envisioned prior to Helene as part of the Buncombe County 2043 Comprehensive Plan that was adopted not long before the storm. But once Halene happened and the incredibly devastating impacts that Swantanoa suffered from Halene, the county uh to moved the Swannanoa Small Air Plan onto the front burner and made it a top priority. And so we've been uh with the county, have been embarking on this planning process that is looking at, you know, all aspects of Swantanoa's recovery and future. And I'm a part of that county appointed steering committee. And of course, the greenway sidewalks and all of the pedestrian stuff and the outdoor recreation stuff that we're going to talk about all ties into that planning process as well.

SPEAKER_00 4:20

The interesting thing about the story, and you just kind of referenced it a little bit, Carol, is that it doesn't start today in 2026. We're talking all the way back to 2009 or 10 of when this whole concept started. And I'd love to kind of go back there to the to the beginning, Carol, maybe, and and talk about what you all saw uh as a need then for what we're going to talk about today. So, yeah, let's kind of unpack this a little bit and give us a little bit of a little history lesson of where this whole project started, Carol.

SPEAKER_01 4:51

Ironically,

Floods Spark A 2010 Study

SPEAKER_01 4:52

it it it kind of was born out of another flood uh that happened in Swannanoa. That was in 2004 when Hurricanes Francis and Ivan, too, two back-to-back, the remnants of those hurricanes came through the mountains and created, you know, a su significant effects in Swantanoa. We had major flooding. At the time we thought it was, you know, terrible, like the worst we'd seen. And of course, we had no idea what was yet to come, you know, in 2024, which far surpassed what happened in 2004. But it was still bad. Not too long after those floods, the city of Asheville and Buncombe County came together to try to, you know, figure out ways to look at all the watersheds and try to get a unified plan for how to reduce future flood risks. And so the Asheville and Buncom appointed the Asheville-Bunkham Flood Damage Reduction Task Force to create and and and begin doing the research and plans for how can we reduce flooding. And I was one of the people that was on that task force. A lot of work uh went into the Greenway effort at that time. The the county actually commissioned a study, Equinox Did It. Swan Oa River US 70 Greenway Feasibility Study. That was uh completed in 2010. That time, as I said, we were the number one priority segment for Buncombe County for Greenway Development, but a lot of things happened with the economy after that. Some of the funding and money dried up. There was some reorganization within the county as to how they were setting up their Greenways efforts, and eventually the momentum moved to the French Broad River. And so we see today, you know, the development of Greenway along the French Broad River, but we don't see anything in Swantanoa. And so unfortunately, that effort in 2010 did not result in the construction of any greenway in Swantanoa, uh, but it set the stage for what we're doing, what we're doing today.

SPEAKER_00 7:01

One

From Trail To Resilience Corridor

SPEAKER_00 7:02

of the things that is evident to me kind of early on in this conversation is that we're not just talking about a recreation greenway. We're talking about a whole lot more than that. It is for recreation, but the purpose is much broader uh than that. And uh it seems like resiliency, like that's a name since Helene, we just continue to to come back to. And it sounds like the resiliency piece has become a really major focus or excuse me, a major focus in this this updated study. Is that a true statement or am I just dreaming that?

SPEAKER_03 7:40

That is absolutely a true statement. We had we had been working on kind of updated grant applications for the Great Trail State grant um pre-Halene, and and we're like really ready to submit it as just kind of more as a pedestrian safety and um quality of life, amenity, connection to the river. But then post-Helene, the application wasn't, they actually extended these deadlines because of Helene. And we put a whole spin on resilience and like really went back to that foundational how can we be building greater flood risk reduction um in this corridor? And the greenway is also a part of that conversation as well. So that is that is absolutely the focus, and there'll be a whole resilience overlay um a part of this corridor that we're focusing on.

SPEAKER_00 8:30

That makes perfect sense to me. I mean, with Equinox, you will do all you all do a lot of great work, but it really the work sits kind of at this intersection of ecology, design, planning, and then this this entire resiliency piece. So it seems to be definitely right in the lane in the ethos of what you all are all about at Equinox, Bradley.

SPEAKER_03 8:49

Yes, yes. Equinox's mission is to work with our clients, build community, protect and restore our region's natural resources, plan for ecological sustainability, and design resilient and regenerative landscapes.

SPEAKER_02 9:02

Nice.

SPEAKER_03 9:03

Yeah, it's out this is like this will be a poster child for how do we blend those these disciplines together for the benefit of the community.

SPEAKER_00 9:11

Oh, no doubt, no doubt. So, with that lens in mind, how are we now approaching this updated Greenway study differently than a tr just a traditional trail project or traditional greenway project?

SPEAKER_03 9:23

So we acknowledge that the the 2010 study um was really great for the time, but it was it was studying an 18-mile corridor between Azalea Park and East Asheville and the edge of Black Mountain, the western edge of Black Mountain. And we realized that in order for this to be more effective, we need to hone in on a smaller corridor. So we ended up going with a seven-mile corridor between Warren Wilson College and still the western edge of Black Mountain. And that segment will go through the heart of Swannanoa, the the the area that got really the most um impacted and flooded during Helene. And some of those key nodes, like Ow Owen Park, is a part of that, and then you have the the US 70 business, kind of the commercial corridor district where Ingalls is, and then you go there there's about I think seven or eight schools, Carol. Is it eight schools?

SPEAKER_01 10:15

Yeah, it's a it's a there was a large concentration of schools within that uh seven mile area.

SPEAKER_03 10:21

And then there's like there's historic neighborhoods like Grovemont and Beacon Village. So there's the river is is really this kind of spinal cord in a way of that could that could be an amazing opportunity for pedestrian um access um across if we were to connect these historic neighborhoods. So we're gonna be studying all of that, but the foundation is really how can we learn from what happened with the river and where did it flood in this very, very extreme hurricane situation? And how can we build in flood storage and and ecological restoration of the riparian buffer, allowing their space for the river to flood in the future, but then also strategically placing a recreational amenity corridor or trail within this area because we'd rather the trail flood in the future than homes or businesses.

SPEAKER_00 11:16

Yeah, absolutely. And I can't wait to dive into that whole piece a little bit more. We talked about it just briefly uh a second ago, but the Great Trails grant, that was a huge reason. That's a huge uplift for you all in terms of your funding for this upcoming uh, or excuse me, for this feasibility study for this next phase. And obviously our listeners are gonna know that we are in North Carolina, the Great Trail State, but the Great Trails Grant is something that really kind of gave you a lot of momentum or is giving you a lot of momentum in this new feasibility study, right?

SPEAKER_01 11:47

We we actually started uh raising money, friends and neighbors of Sonanoa started raising money for the Greenway Feasibility Study before Helene. So we were well on our way to raising money, and we thought we were gonna do a study uh that was gonna be a more traditional, you know, greenway feasibility study. And we had we were raising money and had received a number of grants, and then Helene happened, and uh it became apparent to everybody that this greenway needed to not just be uh a look at you know what's the best possible locations to put a trail, but looking at how do we make a safer community, how do we try to get uh people, buildings, and structures out of harm's way as much as possible and give the river a place to go so that it can spread out and and be absorbed instead of taking out structures, homes, businesses, and and people, you know, in its path. And so being able to get that Great Trail State Grant, that was something that happened post Helene, and it infused another basically a doubled, uh, doubled our uh budget for the study because it's a hundred thousand dollars that we got from the Great Trail State Grant Fund. It's an inaugural state program to try to promote trails within the state. It was the first year of the program, and uh I think we were one of two, I believe, projects in all of Bunkham County that received the funding because it's a statewide program, it was very competitive. So we were very happy to be able to um be a recipient of that money and be able to use it to really do a much deeper dive into the whole resilience and flood mitigation aspect of the project.

SPEAKER_00 13:36

Yeah, that makes a lot of sense. And it's sort of the convergence of I mean, if anybody paid any attention to Helene, we all know this area was hit hard, but we know the devastation that existed specifically in the Suwananoa region. And, you know, you start to see the in in in a lot of Western North Carolina, you start to see rivers just take on new forms and new paths. And, you know, the the the riparian, uh I don't know if I said that right, but that that region just kind of expanded. And one of the things I'd love to kind of maybe hit on real quick before we get too much farther is when we talk about the resilience piece and we talk about this riparian. Am I saying that word right?

SPEAKER_01 14:17

You are saying right. Okay, okay. So like a professional.

SPEAKER_00 14:22

Well, so let's talk about that a little bit more in terms of you know, from an ecological and also a planning perspective. And Bradley, you mentioned something about that, that you want the river, if things like this happen again, we would like it to happen in these zones and not in the infrastructure and the houses and businesses around it. And and the reason I I think it's pretty good to kind of set this up is because I've been looking at a lot of the the former projects that you all have done, and on their face, they just look like beautiful, well thought out, you know, landscaping. And it's so much more than that. I wonder if you can kind of paint that picture for us, which will really kind of help us understand as we go through this episode.

SPEAKER_03 15:02

Sure. A little background.

Green Infrastructure And Riparian Space

SPEAKER_03 15:04

I used to live in New Orleans, so this was a this topic is was kind of near and dear to my heart as an urban planner in New Orleans, focusing on green infrastructure development and and how do you manage flood risk in an in a city um in the in the Mississippi River Delta, so that all of that passion and knowledge has now moved into the mountains. And instead of the water rising up, how do you manage water that's flowing very fast uh down the mountain? But it it really does take a watershed scale approach and and thinking big like that. And basically in the big thought of for Swananoa is since we're in the upper part of the of the watershed of the upper part of the French Broad River watershed, how anything that we do from a flood storage standpoint would mitigate risks downstream. So from it from a design perspective and a site perspective, sites can really be engineered and designed to hold and slow stormwater so it's not moving so fast. Carol had alluded to this, but like the river really does need space and it needs room to flood because that's just the natural um function of its ecosystem. So the riparian zone that you were perfectly saying earlier, talking about earlier, is really just think thinking about it's a flood it's a forested bank of the river, which helps to absorb storm water. So if you have a healthy if you have a healthy ecosystem, you're going to be doing a really great job of that water shouldn't it should be flooding naturally and not really destroying communities the way that it did the way that it does and has been doing across the country because of development patterns that are very close to that riparian zone. So from a specific site perspective, it's really just the landscape architecture, the foundational goal is to like integrate green infrastructure, bioswales, or or and these are just different, there's there's all types of green infrastructure, but it's like you're literally just kind of you're mimicking what the land looked like with these design features um to allow the water to then go into that and and stay, and then naturally seep back into the soil and replenish the the this the ground. So that's the concept. And and I just want to I wanna say another amazing, we are this is a partnership with many stakeholders. I want to say Connect Bunkham is a huge partner in this because they are advocating for greenways at the county scale. And another uh and more on the you know the recreation, they are they are absolutely advocating for the resilience components of greenways and have written a white paper about why that is so beneficial in the age of climate change. Another amazing partner is Riverlink. And they, after Helene, they took an amazing path forward to protect and enhance the Swannanoa River. They uh were awarded grant funding and they did a they have completed in partnership with Wildlands Engineering the middle ri Middle Swannanoa River Restoration study. And it's it's it's the same seven mile corridor that we're gonna be studying for our greenway. And in this, they they literally studied every parcel in the seven-mile corridor and assessed what we can be doing from an engineering scale to restore the riparian zone, to build projects that enhance flood resilience and reduce um reduce flooding downstream, and then just like longer term planning. Like how do we create obviously these projects are more they're more impactful if they're connected, right? We don't want just you don't really want just piecemeal one here, one there. We we need stretches of land that could be used for these these principles to manage flood risk.

SPEAKER_00 18:58

You know, as you're talking, I'm kind of having a uh an image and a picture in my brain. And and would I be right to say that the Greenway on the New Belgium side of the s the the uh French Broad River, would that be an example of how something like this can help? Because it seems like I rode all of that before Helene, and I know there's still destruction on the riverbank right now, but it seems like that could have been a lot worse had that infrastructure not been put in place. Is is that a fair statement?

SPEAKER_03 19:27

Well, and it's it's interesting you bring that up because the areas that had that the areas of that greenway that had intact forests and trees along the riparian zone did did okay. But but the areas that had the where the greenway was really close to the edge, like they got pretty damaged. So it is it is definitely a case study. Um, but it's it's funny because uh Equinox did design that stream that at New Belgium that it used to just kind of be this weeded over gully. But like, yeah, Equinox redesigned that that stream that goes into the river with that same intention of like let's plant replant this with native species, restore some natural um habitat in order to help slow down the water. I mean it's gonna flow because we we're in a mountainous region, but you know what I mean, just to just to make it a little bit more useful and not so destructive.

SPEAKER_00 20:21

Yeah, that makes that makes perfect sense.

Helene Changes The Planning Playbook

SPEAKER_00 20:24

I this is probably gonna come off as a rhetoric question, but we started this process, you all started this process back in the early 2000s. There's about a 15-year gap between the the other feasibility study, the original feasible feasibility study, and where we are today. What feels most different about the conversations that are happening today versus back then?

SPEAKER_01 20:47

The most different thing that has happened in Swantanoa is Helene. And I think as you know most people know, Swantanoa got Swantanoa really got slammed in in every possible way, from our our homes to our businesses to our public spaces to our places where community used to gather, like Owen Park to our grocery store and our post office and our hardware store. All of all of this was was altered forever. And our landscape, our our actual landscape was altered in really significant ways. So, you know, places along the river where there was land before, there's no longer land there. It was carved out and taken by the river. And so there's a whole different landscape, a whole different view shed that we're looking at now. And I think people, you know, recognize the need to be thoughtful and creative about what we do from this point forward. That we should not be putting everything back just the way it was. And so I think we have a great Greater awareness and understanding of the importance of all of us sort of working together as a community to make our community safer, to create a healthier community, a more resilient community, uh uh that is not as vulnerable to future flood events. So I feel like that's a really important part of the conversation in a way that it's changed, is that there's just there's just more more cooperative thinking around, okay, how can we do this better? How can we build something back that's better than what we had before? And we're lucky because we're not lucky in many ways, but we are there is there's a lot of attention on uh Swannanoa right now, and a lot of resources have been brought to bear. And so that's a good thing for the community. But there's also multiple planning efforts going on that the Swannanoa Greenway Feasibility Study nicely dovetails with. And I think people are looking at how do we put a piece of big picture together? You know, how do we how do we build uh how do we restore our business district? How do we build back our housing and and create a place where people can afford to live and there's houses and and and and rental units for them to live in? You know, how do we maintain our sense of community as we as we come back from this devastating storm? And so with all these planning efforts going on, the Swannanoa Small Area Plan that I talked about, there's also the Buncombe County Pedestrian Master Plan, there is the Buncombe County Greenways and Parks Master Plan that's ongoing. There's this Riverlink Middle Swantanoa plan uh study that's happened. Uh Brad mentioned others, but there's multiple plans going on that are really gonna uh bring all of this, hopefully bring it all together.

SPEAKER_00 23:56

Oh, that's great. And before we started recording, we were talking about some of the data and the stats that really kind of speak for themselves in terms of people's um desire for projects like this and and people's desire for everything that you just laid out there, Carol. And it sounds like it is just absolutely overwhelming support that you all continue to move forward with the way that you're approaching that Swannanoa is approaching development uh and really kind of building back post-Helene.

SPEAKER_03 24:27

So, Mike, I just wanted to add um a cool, just uh just a different angle of this whole readiness of why this is happening now. And this is pre-Halene. Like my in my work with Made by Mountains and the Building Outdoor Communities program, how we met originally, yeah, like the the momentum with the outdoor economy and recreation development has just exacerbated across the country in the last six years. Um, since post-pandemic, people flock to the outdoors, they realize that we need nature for public health, we need nature to escape from from the days, day-to-day, you know. Um they just we need nature for our for everything, for our well-being. And every person deserves a safe place to walk, a safe place to recreate, a safe place to connect to nature. And I think that's why North Carolina became the great trail state. And and this the DOT uh made a plan that is connecting a hundred counties with trails, with multi-use trails. And so what we haven't said yet is that our seven mile segment is a part of the Fonta Flora State Trail that is a hundred mile trail corridor between Asheville and Morganton. So, like the economic benefits of that from connecting communities and the business development and entrepreneurship, it's just there's so much there's so much to that that um for quality of life, for connection to nature, for resilience, for public health, for just multimodal transportation. So yeah, so just I just wanted to bring that in as as a key driver as well.

SPEAKER_01 26:06

Yeah, I I just I think I think the greenway kind of marries these two things that we're talking about that that feel different now is is you know sort of the the post-pandemic uh interest and and renewed uh desire for people to experience outdoor spaces and connect more with nature, along with this need and desire to try to create things that are uh that are going to be more resilient and and help the community in future flood events, you can kind of put those two things together with a greenway. They they marry those two uh things very well.

SPEAKER_00 26:45

So

Feasibility Study And Quick Wins

SPEAKER_00 26:46

we're talking about a project that is not built yet. Uh we're talking about something that's that's down the road. Talk about the importance of this stage of the feasibility. What does it look like? Who will it be presented to, and how does this new feasibility study just kind of move this project forward?

SPEAKER_03 27:06

Yeah, so we this feasibility study, it'll take into account existing conditions pre- and post-Tolene, and it'll integrate, as Carol mentioned, all of the recommendations and the priority projects coming out of the small area plan and the pedestrian plan. It'll think about connectivity and pedestrian safety, like integrating a sidewalk network that that will link you know different community spaces and services like the schools and linking neighborhoods, linking Grovemont to Beacon Village and the incredible, incredible emerging Beacon Park on the 40-acre former Beacon Blanket factory mill.

SPEAKER_02 27:47

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 27:47

So the mill site. So like there is so much happening in Swananoa right now. And pedestrian safety is a huge component to this. And how could we're gonna be thinking about from an from a planning perspective, from an engineering perspective, like what are what are some of course we have this, we have the seven mile corridor that we're gonna do a conceptual, here's some preferred and alternative alignments for a greenway. Because it it ultimately comes down to what which landowners are willing to have a greenway go through their area.

SPEAKER_02 28:23

Okay.

SPEAKER_03 28:23

Like so we we don't know that yet. It's like this is yeah, it's a very there's it's a conversation and um and of course we're gonna study Bunkham County land that they have along the Swannanoa River from past flooding events. They do have a lot of land and thinking about so what are the opportunities, what are the constraints, what's the the unique thing about this feasibility study because of the nature of we want implementation to happen faster, and we we don't want this to just go on a shelf. Like this is gonna be something that we implement. We have a whole section of this Greenway that's gonna be focusing on what are three three potential sites along this corridor that could be easy that could be earlier or easy wins, like low-hanging fruit for the community, where we can maybe activate pocket parks along along the trail. Maybe they could also serve as it could be the first Santa Flora trailhead for Buncombe County. Um we are thinking about all of that and and then taking them with these three sites, it's getting them to a further process of conceptual design. Because as as as in this world, you have to do planning and then design and then construction and then this implementation of all that. So that there's a lot of steps, and I think we have incredible momentum in this step, in this in the early steps right now. We're gonna our goal is to really, with this feasibility study, is to set up the following steps for as best of success as possible.

SPEAKER_00 29:59

So, how can people who live in Swantanoa and then might be you know a direct benefactor of this corridor, the seven-mile corridor, how can they get in more involved and and be supportive? And then likewise, people who may not live in Swannanoa, but they love Western North Carolina, they love this region, how can they be involved and support these efforts as well?

SPEAKER_01 30:22

Well, one way I think Brad, feel free to jump in on this as well, but I think that Connect Bunkham is an organization that, as Brad mentioned earlier, is kind of our countywide Greenway advocacy group. That group has a board that people can become engaged with, and they also are always looking for donations, you know, to help they make they make uh microgrants to many, many different organizations that are developing uh Greenways and working on Greenway projects. In fact, uh Friends and Neighbors of Swannanoa was a recipient of one of their grants for our Greenway feasibility study. So that's one way that people can can support is by getting engaged with, you know, Connect Bunkham if they're in Bunkham or with their local Greenways organizations in the community where they live.

SPEAKER_00 31:14

What are key elements that we have not talked about that are really integral to this whole story?

SPEAKER_03 31:20

In

Land Use Vision And Local Business

SPEAKER_03 31:21

within the Swannanoa Small Area Plan process that is they're underway right now, and they're kind of they're almost done with it. It's get they're getting towards the end of their public engagement, and it should be finished and adopted by September of 26th. Um, they've created a future land use map for Swatanoa. And this is typical for like a comprehensive planning effort, and they have color-coded different different areas of of like commercial, mixed use, uh, river corridor, protected land, blah, blah, blah. And what I love about this is we are gonna be, from the study pers perspective, we're gonna be really thinking about like what is the future going to be for Swatanoa in the next 20 years, and how can we be using the data collected from the small area plan and to think about our kind of ribbon of greenway that would flow through this, and and how does it align with these color-coded potential use categories? And I want to give a tangible example because it's one of my favorites. Carol was mentioning that we had guest speakers from um other communities at our Rising Strong event back in March, and one of those guest speakers was the Friends of the Acousta Trail, Mark Thule. And we were talking about the impact of the Acousta Trail on local businesses, and I think one of the things that and I'm talking about like adjacent, trail adjacent local businesses. One of the most fascinating pieces of this puzzle to me is the economic development and especially adaptive reuse of these old industrial buildings that takes place like right on the trail. And like if you go to the Acusta Cafe, which is now this thriving restaurant cafe, um connected to a brewery, it's like three businesses are now activated in amenities for people on bikers and hikers and runners. And I just love that. And I I think that's kind of the vision that I hold as a planner and uh on the fans board is just thinking of the potential of of local entrepreneurship and and like and then you can connect all of that back to like ecological interpretation of the river too. Like you're giving the businesses that are along the trail. Um so you get you're giving people you're giving people ways to spend their money to support local, but then you're also giving people ways to like learn about the river, connect with the river, get passionate about ecology, get passionate about resilience. Like, why are we designing a bioswell like this to manage stormwater? Let's inspire people about the potential of living in this incredible Swantanoa Valley, a part of a greater watershed.

SPEAKER_00 34:06

That is absolutely resonates with me, and it hits a cord because I live in Henderson County, and I've seen firsthand what the Acusta Trail has been able to do from one end to the other, at least in the Henderson County piece, and I know that that will continue when it gets into the Transylvania County piece as well. But yeah, I I mean it really, really resonates with me. And there aren't too many people when you go around town, at least in my sphere of of influence or friends, and and the Acousta doesn't come up at at some point because it really does tie communities together, the whole Linux station, you know, what that was changed into, the Acousta market, Trailhead or excuse me, Trail Side, uh, even gas stations along the way, painting murals on the back and kind of being excited about what this is doing for the community, um, Bradley, it it really it adds color to the conversation for me because I live in a community that has this and it's new for us. And I've gone to, you know, I love Greenways, just in general, I love Greenways, rails to trails, I just love them. But it's different when you go into a community and you experience it, and that's great on the recreation side. But when it's your home and you see that it all these things that you know that we can say trails can become and will foster really comes to life, it really just deepens it, at least for me. Um so what you're saying definitely um resonates with me. And the whole time we've been talking, I have this context of the acoustic trail. It doesn't, it's not along the river, but there are some riparian uh you know uh what's the best way to say it?

SPEAKER_03 35:45

Um You got it, you got it.

SPEAKER_00 35:47

There are riparian uh oh gosh, I'm gonna yes, thank you. There are riparian zones that you can see are very clear and you can see they're part of the resiliency that were really, really, really well thought out.

What We Hope People Feel

SPEAKER_03 36:00

Beautiful.

SPEAKER_00 36:01

When you imagine someone walking or biking or jogging or just enjoying this corridor years from now, what do you hope that they feel about Swan Noah?

SPEAKER_03 36:14

I just was picturing I was picturing like I was picturing kids and like young families and s so to speak. Um, but it could be any person. It could be it's the the point is it's people of all ages and abilities walking this trail, enjoying this trail, smiling. But I think that the the piece to me is connection to nature and just feeling a part of something bigger, bigger than the community, bigger than our, you know, bigger than the watershed. Like we're a part of this mountain, these mountain landscapes, this incredible, beautiful mountain landscape. I feel I for me it's like the harmony with nature. How can we evoke that sense of place and create very thought out, beautiful places for people to just be.

SPEAKER_00 36:59

Well said.

SPEAKER_01 37:02

I I hope for those things too. I hope that the Greenway will have achieved you know many of the goals that we hope for it to achieve. I hope that those those benefits will become a reality for people that live here, that we will be safer, that we will be more connected, that people will feel a strong sense of place and a strong sense of connection to their home, to Swannanoa, that they'll feel like it is the greatest place to live. The river will be taken care of and uh appreciated for its beauty and for all that it can teach us. And I hope that people, you know, 20 years from now, walking through Swannanoa using a greenway, will will think that we did a good job. We'll think that we we did it right, you know, that we took the time and we we worked together and we uh created something that was better than what was there before. And and I, you know, that's that's probably the number one thing that I hope for is that we will have we will have done it right.

SPEAKER_00 38:19

That's a beautiful vision, Carol.

Closing Thoughts And Thanks

SPEAKER_00 38:22

Well, listen, Carol, Bradley, I really appreciate you all spending some time with me today. It's it's super interesting to hear how something that started as a Greenway vision years ago has evolved into really a bigger conversation about community and resilience and and really kind of how people experience the valley in in nature. Um I'm just really thankful uh for your time and uh thanks for taking the time to share it with me today.

SPEAKER_01 38:48

Thank you for having us, Mike. It was it was great to talk to you.

SPEAKER_03 38:52

Yeah, thank you so much. It's always always a pleasure uh to talk about this wonderful wonderful aspect of stories.

SPEAKER_00 39:00

One of the things I enjoy most about this conversation is discovering that the stories are really about station.