Blue Ridge Parkway and DOT bridges hit with graffiti in east Asheville? Buildings getting ‘NEO’d’ in Sylva? 

Today’s round of questions, my smart-aleck replies and the real answers:

Question: I have a question for you about graffiti, which is growing around the city, and not just the stuff in the River Arts District. I’m talking about in our neighborhood off U.S. 74. Between the end of the I-240 there are two overpasses, and one of them had a lot of new graffiti go up on it this week. This is the Blue Ridge Parkway bridge, but a DOT bridge also has it. What do they do to clean this up? And do they do any kind of patrols or anything to try to catch these folks? I’m assuming it is illegal, right?

My answer: I’m betting the “graffiti patrol” assignment in law enforcement is not real coveted.

Real answer: Interesting side note on this case — the reader who sent the question reported an update: The graffiti on the Blue Ridge Parkway bridge had been painted over … which was shortly after I sent the question to the Parkway folks. Probably a coincidence, but it did not help with me trying to get a photo.

At any rate, it’s probably going to come back.

“Graffiti is unfortunately a persistent issue,” Blue Ridge Parkway spokesperson Leesa Sutton Brandon said via email. “We posted some content on our website a couple of years ago, and try to raise awareness on social media regularly as well.”

The parkway, laid out in the 1930s, stretches 469 miles from Virginia into far western North Carolina, so unfortunately it offers a lot of opportunities for graffiti practitioners.

The parkway says vandalized or stolen signs have become all too common.

“Nearly every day, park rangers find words or images drawn, painted, or carved into signs, fences and infrastructure,” the website states, noting that these signs are custom made, and “the replacement or repair of signs is expensive, time consuming, and labor intensive. Wooden informational signs cost $750 to replace.”

The mission of the Parkway is “to preserve unimpaired the natural and cultural resources and values of the national park system for the enjoyment, education, and inspiration of this and future generations.” Workers want the signs, bridges and other infrastructure to blend in with the landscape as much as possible.

“Dozens of park rangers and volunteers regularly remove graffiti, using time and resources that could go toward other parkway projects that would better benefit local communities and visitors,” the website states. “A single graffiti removal project on concrete sections of the Linn Cove Viaduct cost the park service approximately $450 for labor and materials.”

In early 2022, the Parkway conducted three major cleanups on the iconic Linn Cove Viaduct.

“Other surfaces prove to be more challenging — graffiti removal on exposed rock costs nearly three-times as much due to chemicals, labor, and the specialized equipment needed,” the website notes.

The parkway is part of the National Park Service, and vandalism in any park setting is a crime, in this case a class B misdemeanor with punishment up to a $5,000 fine and six months in jail. Theft of parkway signs can be charged as a felony.

Of course, catching the folks doing this is not easy anywhere. The Parkway does ask anyone who witnesses vandalization of park property to get a license plate if possible and call 800-PARKWATCH (800-727-5928) to report the incident to park dispatchers.  

While the larger graffiti my reader called about was covered up, I did notice some older tags on the bridge supports. Also, it appears that folks are living under this bridge that spans U.S. 74, at least judging by all the garbage and food waste in the area.

Graffiti and tagging is also a problem for the NCDOT.

“In most cases, we schedule and manage graffiti removal as we are notified about the vandalism,” Justin Rice, bridge maintenance engineer with NCDOT’s Division 13, said via email. “NCDOT employees either remove graffiti or cover it with paint.”

DOT workers also examine areas with recurring graffiti on a routine, bi-weekly basis.

“On average, NCDOT Division 13 spends about $30,000 dollars per year removing graffiti,” Rice said. Division 13 includes seven mountain counties, including Buncombe.

Question: I know you usually focus on Asheville and Buncombe County — what with its James Beard chefs, music halls, and drum circles — but this question comes from Sylva (hey, we have a James Beard semi-finalist, too!), or as I like to call it, “West, West Asheville.” Every morning I drive my (adorable, really) kids to school down Highway 107 — a road that the NCDOT is about to reshape and rework. And, you know what happens before the DOT reshapes and reworks — they bulldoze. The kids have noticed a pattern. Just before a building is demolished, the word “NEO” appears on the side. We have begun to refer to this process as “being NEO’d.” A local Mexican restaurant was “NEO’d” the other day and it hasn’t been heard from since. The bagel place appears to be next. So, we know what happens when you’re NEO’d, but we still don’t know what “NEO” stands for. I thought maybe this was a Keanu Reeves reference. Being 10 and 8, my kids don’t know the Matrix from a hockey puck, so the reference fell flat. The kids have decided that “NEO” stands for Now Eliminate Object — a good guess, but since they only have a combined 8 years of education, I discounted it immediately. I told them there is only one person who can help us get to the bottom of the NEO question — the omniscient Answer Man. 

My answer: As a general reminder, flattery will get you everywhere with me.

Real answer: It would have been super cool if Keanu Reeves and friends were filming another Matrix film, this time in western North Carolina, but, alas, this whole “NEO” business has a much more mundane explanation. Not that it didn’t stump NCDOT spokesperson David Uchiyama for a bit.

“The N.C. Department of Transportation has more acronyms than a Major League Baseball scorekeeper,” Uchiyama said. “The bosses gave me a seven-page sheet full of acronyms — a cheat-sheet — my first week on the job. Plus, there’s an internal website named Roadway Design Terms and Definitions.”

So Uchiyama punched “NEO” into the search bar. Nothing. He tried “N.E.O.” Nada. He tried it as “neo.” Zip.

He also noted that he and I tried out a few colorful acronyms of our own making. I was proud of mine: “New Explosion Opportunity.”

But like I said, it’s way more mundane.

“So I finally asked Jeanette White, Division 14 Project Development Team Lead, what it actually stands for,” Uchiyama said.

She told him, “It’s the name of the contractor that is removing the buildings.”

As Uchiyama said, “Oh. That makes sense.”

Yes. Yes it does. It seems the Canton company NEO Corp., which does “Environmental, Industrial And Demolition Services,” according to its website, has the contract to demolish structures for the N.C. 107 widening project.

So in a way, when a building gets marked with “NEO,” it is going to get NEO’d.

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Got a question? Send it to John Boyle at  jboyle@avlwatchdog.org or 828-337-0941.