Pedestrian and bicycle crash hotspots across the Greenville, Spartanburg and Asheville region

The Greenville-Spartanburg-Asheville market stretches across two states and a mountain range, but people on foot and on two wheels run into the same trouble on both sides of the line. Wide roads built to move cars fast, with missing sidewalks and long gaps between safe crossings. South Carolina ranks fourth worst in the nation for pedestrian deaths, at 3.37 killed per 100,000 residents each year, and the Greenville-Anderson-Greer metro recorded 143 pedestrian deaths from 2020 through 2024.¹² North Carolina fares better statewide, ranking 15th, but the Asheville side of the market carries its own record: the city is first in the state, per capita, for cyclists killed by drivers.¹³

If you or someone in your family was hit here, the location usually isn't random. Most of these deaths pile up on a short list of corridors that local agencies have been studying, and arguing about, for years.

The Upstate: White Horse Road and the US 25 corridor

No road in the region has a worse reputation than White Horse Road, which carries US 25 through Greenville's west side. Twenty-three pedestrians were killed on it between 2010 and 2019.⁴ The intersection of White Horse Road and Farrs Bridge Road in Berea was ranked the 22nd deadliest intersection in the country for drivers, and SCDOT's own tally for US 25 from 2010 to 2014 counted 26 pedestrian crashes and 15 fatal crashes on the corridor.⁴ Bike Walk Greenville, which built a Vulnerable Road User map from ten years of SCDOT crash reports, points to the same stretch, along with Wade Hampton Boulevard (US 29) and Poinsett Highway. Those three corridors together account for 43 pedestrian deaths over a decade, 12 of them on Wade Hampton and 8 on Poinsett.⁵⁴

The fix has crawled. SCDOT lined up a $2.5 million round of White Horse Road safety improvements, but the lone construction bid came in at $5.9 million in November 2021, and the work stalled for more than two years.⁴

Spartanburg County has the deadliest roads in the region overall. It recorded 31 traffic fatalities in a single year, the most of any South Carolina county, ahead of Greenville County (15) and Anderson County (10), according to South Carolina Department of Public Safety figures relayed by the county coroner.⁶ As the coroner put it, the danger isn't only on the main highways; the back roads can be just as deadly.⁶

Some Upstate work is moving. The Greenville-Pickens Area Transportation Study (GPATS), the region's metropolitan planning organization, has funded a corridor study for Woodruff Road, one of the most congested roads in South Carolina, and has backed access-management projects on US 29 and Wade Hampton to cut the driveways and left turns that create so many conflict points.⁷⁴

Across the state line: Asheville and Buncombe County

Asheville's crashes track a handful of old arterials that double as federal highways. Patton Avenue carries US 19, US 23 and US 74A across the west side, and its junction with New Leicester Highway drew more than 140 crashes between 2020 and 2024 in NCDOT records, one of the busiest and most tangled intersections in the city.⁸ Tunnel Road, Hendersonville Road, and Smokey Park Highway at Acton Circle turn up on the same list, where dense commercial frontage means constant stopping and turning across driveways.⁸

For people walking, the Asheville Police Department counted nearly 17 pedestrians killed inside city limits between 2021 and 2023, after logging more than 230 pedestrian crashes in 2020 alone.⁹ Recent deaths have landed on roads like Airport Road and New Leicester Highway.⁹

Cyclists carry an outsized share of the harm. Between 2015 and 2024, NCDOT recorded 211 crashes between vehicles and bicycles in Asheville, 165 of them causing injuries, and seven riders have been killed since 2021.³ That record is what puts Asheville first in North Carolina, per capita, for fatal bike crashes.³ One of those riders, Alexander Rozos, was struck and killed on Swannanoa River Road in 2024.³

What the agencies are actually fixing

Not every corridor here is frozen. Merrimon Avenue, a busy connector north of downtown Asheville, had a documented crash problem for years before NCDOT converted a four-lane section to three lanes with a center turn lane and bike lanes. A June 2024 NCDOT review found roughly a 23% drop in total crashes and about a 30% drop in injury crashes on the reconfigured stretch, along with slower traffic and more people riding bikes.³¹⁰

The larger push is regional. The French Broad River MPO adopted its Safe Streets for WNC plan on August 21, 2025, paid for by a federal Safe Streets and Roads for All grant and covering Buncombe, Haywood, Henderson, Madison and Transylvania counties.¹¹ The plan builds a High Injury Network map that flags where crashes concentrate, with Merrimon Avenue and the southern Hendersonville Road corridor marked "very high" risk.³¹¹ Its stated target is a 10% cut in deaths and serious injuries by 2035, and zero by 2050.¹¹

If you were hit on one of these roads

Whether it happened on White Horse Road in Greenville or Patton Avenue in Asheville, the early steps are the same. Get checked by a doctor even if you feel okay, because head and internal injuries from a pedestrian or bike crash can surface hours later. Make sure a crash report gets filed, by the South Carolina Highway Patrol or the local police in the Upstate, or by Asheville police or the Buncombe County Sheriff's Office in North Carolina. If you can, photograph the spot where you were hit, the crosswalk or the missing sidewalk, and your injuries.

One thing worth knowing: the rules on fault differ across the state line, and they can decide whether you're able to recover anything at all. If you're weighing a claim, talk to someone licensed in the state where the crash happened. You can start with the thatcarhitme.com legal directory to find an attorney who handles pedestrian and bicycle cases in the Upstate or Western North Carolina.

The corridors in this article aren't secrets. They show up in SCDOT and NCDOT crash files, in GPATS and French Broad River MPO plans, and in the memories of the families who lost someone on them. Knowing which roads carry the risk is the part you can use today.

This article is general information, not legal advice.

Sources

1. Smart Growth America / Transportation for America, Dangerous by Design 2026 metro and state rankings. https://www.smartgrowthamerica.org/signature-reports/dangerous-by-design/2026-dbd-rankings/

2. Smart Growth America, Dangerous by Design (report overview and methodology). https://smartgrowthamerica.org/dangerous-by-design/

3. "'Deeply flawed': Asheville is worst in North Carolina for bicyclist deaths per capita," Cardinal Pine, September 8, 2025 (NCDOT crash data obtained by the Asheville Citizen Times). https://cardinalpine.com/2025/09/08/deeply-flawed-asheville-is-worst-in-north-carolina-for-bicyclist-deaths-per-capita/

4. Tamia Boyd, "State nixed safety plan for 'dangerous' White Horse Road over funding; new effort in sight," Greenville News, April 5, 2022. https://www.yahoo.com/news/state-nixed-safety-plan-dangerous-093015403.html

5. Bike Walk Greenville, South Carolina Pedestrian Deaths Data and Vulnerable Road User Map (SCDOT and SCDPS crash data). https://bikewalkgreenville.org/sc-pedestrian-deaths-data/

6. "Spartanburg County continues to lead state in traffic deaths," Spartanburg Herald-Journal (South Carolina Department of Public Safety data). https://www.yahoo.com/news/spartanburg-county-continues-lead-state-021217280.html

7. Greenville-Pickens Area Transportation Study (GPATS). https://www.gpats.org/

8. "These Asheville roads see the most crashes," 828 News Now (NCDOT crash data). https://828newsnow.com/news/228822-these-asheville-roads-see-the-most-crashes/

9. "Summer surge in pedestrian accidents sparks safety efforts in Asheville," WLOS News 13 (Asheville Police Department data). https://wlos.com/news/local/summer-surge-in-pedestrian-accidents-sparks-safety-efforts-in-asheville

10. City of Asheville, Merrimon Avenue Transportation Study (NCDOT June 2024 safety report). https://www.ashevillenc.gov/projects/merrimon-avenue-transportation-study/

11. French Broad River MPO, Safe Streets for WNC Regional Safety Action Plan. https://frenchbroadrivermpo.org/safe-streets-for-wnc-regional-safety-action-plan/