With one proposal rejected, will Charlotte get more 1-77 toll lanes?
State and regional highway planners have rejected an unsolicited proposal by Spain-based road-building giant Cintra to construct and manage Interstate 77 toll lanes from Charlotte to South Carolina.
Cintra is among the world’s largest transportation network developers. It financed, built and manages the 26 miles of I-77 toll lanes from I-277/Brookshire Freeway to Mooresville.
In February 2022, the company offered to build such lanes on the perennially clogged I-77 stretch through Charlotte. But a group of state and local highway planners has decided against Cintra’s plan, local NCDOT official Brett Canipe told the Charlotte Regional Transportation Planning Organization Wednesday night.
That’s because NCDOT for years has planned for a similar project for managed lanes along the 11.2-mile stretch. The plan is in its statewide transportation improvement plan, he said.
The $2.1-billion plan calls for managed or “express” lanes from I-277 to the state line.
“It wasn’t flawed necessarily,” Canipe said about Cintra’s proposal. “It checked all the boxes.”
It’s just that the state is already deep into considering such a project, he said.
By April 2024, he said, state highway planners expect to know the costs of managed-lane alternatives in more detail and ask the CRTPO for a decision.
The board would decide between having the project paid for through tolls, with the toll lanes built and managed in a public-private partnership, or with public monies budgeted through the state DOT.
Expect a considerably longer time frame for the lanes to get built if the CRTPO recommends the traditional state-funded option, David Roy, chief financial officer of the North Carolina Turnpike Authority, told the CRTPO board last fall.
The earliest the project would receive funding is 2029, he said. Add 10 to 15 years to buy right-of-way, move utilities and build more lanes, according to Roy.
A public-private partnership “could potentially lessen or eliminate some of those funding constraints,” according to an NCDOT statement to The Charlotte Observer in October. “But more analysis is needed.”
Had highway planners agreed to study Cintra’s plan further, Cintra would automatically have been allowed as a qualified bidder if the state decided to put such a toll-lane project out for bids.
Charlotte City Council member Ed Driggs told fellow CRTPO board members Wednesday he’s glad that the working group of highway planners rejected moving forward with further analyzing Cintra’s proposal.
The group includes officials from the N.C. Department of Transportation, the N.C. Turnpike Authority and the CRTPO.
“Given the sensitivity around Cintra, I think that’s good news,” Driggs said.
He was referring to the public backlash against elected officials in north Mecklenburg and then-Gov. Pat McCrory, who either approved or stayed silent when Cintra’s I-77 toll lanes in the Lake Norman area were approved last decade.
I-77 Charlotte-to-SC toll lanes work could start in 5 yrs — with this option, DOT says
