Today’s round of questions, my smart-aleck replies, and the real answers:
Question: Throughout the years, however many it’s been, as my family and I travel southeast on I-26 to visit family, go to the beach, or head to north Florida, we check out the construction. Our son is going to be nine soon, and we’ve been doing this for what feels like his whole life. There’s always construction equipment on the side of the highway. When we drive by on a weekday, we get to see them working, yet we most often drive by on the weekends and equipment is mostly sitting idle. Someone who is a part of this construction project has pink construction equipment — a pink bulldozer, a pink digger, a pink roller. I don’t know what they’re all called but there’s like four or five different pink construction vehicles. At some point, we made it a game to see who could find them first. Throughout the last 10 years, the equipment will move around on the I-26 widening project area. Recently, we couldn’t locate the pink equipment and we thought maybe they had moved on. But then we spotted them in a place that was hard to see when you were heading towards South Carolina. It was easier to see when heading back to Asheville. We’re wondering who is the person who owns this construction equipment? We think it’s so cool that they have pink construction vehicles/equipment. Why did they choose pink? Are they a local person, or did they move here for the job? Whenever they move on, we will always remember the time that we would shout “pink equipment” for whoever saw the items first!
My answer: At this point, I’m pretty sure we all feel the I-26 widening has been going on for what seems like our entire lives. To be fair, that’s just since 2019.
Real answer: It is hard to miss the pink equipment on the job sites, and I know I’ve wondered about these eye-catching machines myself, so I thank the reader for this query.
Bonnie Rimel is the woman behind the pink machinery, as she is the owner of Bonn-J Contracting Inc. of Chuluota, Florida, which is about 25 miles northeast of Orlando. Her company specializes in installing a special type of mechanically stabilized walls along road projects.
Bonn-J has more than 30 pieces of equipment, including excavators, loaders, bulldozers, and rollers.
While the company has been in business for 37 years, the pink equipment dates only to 2010, Rimel said. Until then, Rimel had equipment in several colors, but not pink.
In the fall of that year, Rimel’s best friend was diagnosed with breast cancer, and shortly after that Bonn-J was awarded a contract on a huge job on I-595 in southern Florida. It was set to start in October.
“It was breast cancer that really was my first thought,” Rimel told me. “But then when I was awarded that project, I thought, ‘This is perfect.’”
The pink color served as a tribute to her friend, and it continues to raise awareness about breast cancer, Rimel said. But it also serves a couple of very practical purposes.
First, that I-595 project was enormous, and her company had equipment spread between six to 10 sites. The pink color allowed Rimel to locate her equipment and crews easily, as most other construction machinery is the standard orange color we all know.
“Another thing, too, is down in the Miami area, equipment was getting stolen left and right, and vandalism,” Rimel said. “We had some (stolen or vandalized), but it was so minimum compared to others. They didn’t touch the pink equipment. It was too obvious to get away with it, so it turned out to be kind of a safety feature as well.”
Over the years, the equipment has garnered a lot of media coverage, Rimel said, adding that her mostly male crews love the attention.
“They would kind of laugh about it,” she said. “They acted macho man, but they loved every bit of it — so much attention.”
If you’re interested in learning more about Rimel and her business journey, Equipment World magazine had an excellent article about Rimel and Bonn-J last October. By the way, Rimel’s middle name is Jean, so that’s where “Bonn-J” comes from.
Question: We returned from our trip to find you have to catch ground transport — Ubers, cabs, etc. — away from the main airport terminal, in a parking lot across the highway. You may know this already. What you may not know is that the pickup area is completely unsheltered. You stand on a tiny concrete island with no canopy. Imagine landing in a pouring rain and being ferried to a parking lot where you stand there in the rain waiting for your ride. Or midday at 92 degrees in a broiling sun. Presumably they have a better plan? Or maybe not. Uber drivers are very unhappy, according to ours.
My answer: And to think the airport project has only been going on for a decade. OK, just about a year, but it’s amazing how these construction projects can feel like a lifetime.
Real answer: Judging by the number of questions that keep rolling in about Asheville Regional Airport’s construction project, it looks like the airport is going through some pretty rough growing pains.
Last summer, Asheville Regional embarked on a $400 million construction project to build a terminal that will be 150 percent larger than its current one. The airport served 2,246,411 passengers in 2023, a 22.2 percent increase over 2022, and it’s continued to grow this year.
Airport spokesperson Tina Kinsey said they’re aware of the issues with the ride service area.
“Yes, our taxi and ride app area has relocated to Shuttle Lot South, and our airport shuttles pick up customers on the front curb of the airport terminal and drop them off directly at the taxi/ride app pick-up area,” Kinsey said via email. “We have one covered shelter in place currently, and yes, it is small.
“We have another shuttle stop shelter being installed this week, which will be installed near the existing shelter at the pick-up area. We are sourcing a larger covered shelter for the pick-up area, and there is no specific timeline yet to report.”
Asheville Watchdog is a nonprofit news team producing stories that matter to Asheville and Buncombe County. Got a question? Send it to John Boyle at jboyle@avlwatchdog.org or 828-337-0941. His Answer Man columns appear each Tuesday and Friday. The Watchdog’s reporting is made possible by donations from the community. To show your support for this vital public service go to avlwatchdog.org/support-our-publication/
