Charlotte City Council backs new toll lanes along I-77 via private partnership

Drivers travel Interstate 77 near Arrowood Road in Charlotte, N.C., in July 2022. State and regional highway planners rejected an unsolicited proposal by Spain-based road-building giant Cintra to construct and manage Interstate 77 toll lanes from Charlotte to South Carolina.

The Charlotte City Council voted unanimously Monday to support taking the next steps to add toll lanes along a congested stretch of Interstate 77 through a public-private partnership.

The plan next heads to the Charlotte Regional Transportation Planning Organization, which coordinates plans for state and federal road projects in Mecklenburg, Union and Iredell counties, for a vote. The CRTPO uses a weighted voting system, so Charlotte’s vote actually counts for 31 votes — nearly half of the 68 votes available.

The council directed Ed Driggs, the council member who represents Charlotte on the CRTPO board, to cast those crucial votes in favor of exploring a public-private partnership for more toll lanes. The new lanes would run along 11 miles of I-77 stretching from the South Carolina line to uptown Charlotte.

“Really we’re just deciding about whether or not to keep working on this,” said Driggs, who chairs Charlotte’s transportation committee.

State and regional transportation planners have explored the idea of adding toll lanes in the corridor since 2007, and the CRTPO added the project to its long-term plans in 2014. The corridor has a crash rate 2.5 times higher than the statewide average for urban interstates, a statistic the North Carolina Department of Transportation attributes to congestion that “will continue to increase.”

But to date, the state has committed just $600 million to the project, NCDOT officials told Charlotte’s transportation committee last week. NCDOT’s latest estimates put the total cost of the new lanes at $3.7 billion and project that even with toll revenue, a fully public approach faces a $1.3 billion funding gap.

A public-private partnership — where the state owns the lanes but partners with a developer to design, build, finance, operate and maintain them — could solve the financing problem and kickstart construction by 2028, according to NCDOT.

The plan would mimic the existing 26 miles of “express lanes” along I-77 from Charlotte to the Lake Norman area. Transportation leaders have said those lanes improved rush-hour drive times, but the four years of construction to build them led to frustration with the private contractor on the project, Cintra.

On Tuesday, Mecklenburg County commissioners voted 5-4 to cast their two votes on the CRTPO against the proposal.

The CRTPO is scheduled to vote on the new project Wednesday.

If approved, the group will work with NCDOT to set priorities for the plan over the next eight to 10 months before issuing a request for bids from developers. If the CRTPO votes against pursuing a public-private partnership, NCDOT has said the toll lane project would be put on indefinite hold.