As I-77 plans advance, McCrorey Heights residents worry about potential impact

Jack Brayboy remembers when Van Buren Avenue in Charlotte’s McCrorey Heights neighborhood led a massive hill near Mulberry Avenue and Fairfield Street.

Back in the 1960s, there were a number of houses, maybe a dozen, Brayboy said, sprawled along the hillside that overlooked the historically Black neighborhood. That included his great-uncle’s home. Brayboy said he’d ride up the hill with other neighborhood kids and just gaze out.

“It was a beautiful hill,” Brayboy said. “There was grandeur to the skyline. It was amazing that they just came in one day and said, ‘Hey, we’re taking it. Y’all can do what you want to do.’ ”

By “they,” Brayboy is referring to the city and the state. The “taking” was the state’s acquisition of homes in several Black neighborhoods for its Northwest Expressway. It was a $10 million project that put Brookshire Freeway, or NC-16, through the middle of McCrorey Heights.

Using eminent domain in the late 1960s, more than 240 families were displaced in the West End to make way for Brookshire and Interstates 77, 85 and 277. Including Brayboy’s great-uncle’s home.

Now, current McCrorey Heights residents may be experiencing deja vu with the city and state’s latest I-77 expansion plan.

Dubbed the I-77 South Express Lanes plan, the 11-mile project would add toll lanes from the Brookshire Freeway exit to the South Carolina border. Although McCrorey Heights sits north of the Brookshire, residents were told by the North Carolina Department of Transportation that their neighborhood may be affected by the expansion.

What that impact is, from increased noise pollution to another round of eminent domain, is unclear.

“We’re still trying to come up with a design for the project itself,” said Felix Obregon, an NCDOT engineer. “We wanted to reach out to the community, talk to them about our upcoming project. … But as far as the actual impact to (McCrorey Heights), we’re still trying to work through that concept of what that would look like.”

But residents said these conversations feel like a repeat of the 1960s discussions on Brookshire. They want to make sure the city and state don’t fragment the neighborhood further.

“This is not something that we take lightly,” said Sean Langley, president of the McCrorey Heights neighborhood association. “This has already happened to our community. It disconnected us from uptown to Greenville to all these different communities. Now to see again, the third time, essentially, their desire to expand the freeway and encroach towards McCrorey Heights, is problematic.

“We understand Charlotte’s growing by leaps and bounds, but this isn’t the right approach.”

A history of the I-77 South Express Lanes project

In 2007, state and regional transportation planners began discussing the addition of toll lanes to the I-77 corridor.

The agencies conducted a “Fast Lane Study” to determine whether existing and planned highways would benefit from express toll lanes to ease congestion, especially because of Charlotte’s potential growth.

“I think those folks back then were really forward-thinking to really realize that the Charlotte region was going to grow,” said Brett Canipe, NCDOT’s western deputy chief engineer. “I don’t think anybody predicted the rate of growth that the area’s seen, but certainly it’s tremendous growth and a lot of traffic.”

State road improvement projects take a long time to come to fruition because of planning and funding, Canipe said.

A local project first goes through the Charlotte Regional Transportation Planning Organization, which looks at urban transportation improvements in Iredell, Mecklenburg and Union counties.

After several stages of rankings and approvals, the plan gets put on a long-range planning document.

The I-77 South Express Lanes project was added to that document in 2014 and was finally approved last year.

The plan is technically complex, Canipe said, and it’s the most expensive highway project in the state’s history at $3.2 billion.

The state has committed $600 million. Needing an additional $2.6 billion, the state will seek a public-private partnership to help fund the project.

What is the I-77 South Express Lanes project?

The project is similar to the existing 26 miles of express lanes along I-77 from Charlotte to the Lake Norman area, which opened in December 2020.

Running from Westinghouse Boulevard to the I-277/Brookshire Freeway, the I-77 south project will transform the highway into three free general-purpose lanes and two variable toll lanes.

The goal of the project is to reduce traffic and crashes.

A recent report from Wilmington-based law firm Shipman & Wright said I-77 from central Charlotte down to South Carolina is the sixth-deadliest stretch of roadway in the state, with 12 deadly crashes from 2019 to 2023.

The I-77 south corridor has a crash rate 2.5 times higher than the statewide average for urban interstates, according to a statistic from NCDOT. The cause, the agency said, is congestion.

And with 157 people moving to the region every day, the agency said the congestion will only worsen.

McCrorey Heights and Charlotte growth

Charlotte’s growth and the subsequent need for infrastructure change is a tune McCrorey Heights residents are familiar with, Langley said.

In the early 1900s, when Charlotte’s white suburbs barred Black residents, Rev. H.L. McCrorey had an idea. The second Black man to serve as president of Johnson C. Smith University wanted to build his own neighborhood.

In 1912, McCrorey founded McCrorey Heights.

About three years later, the city came knocking. Charlotte took a portion of McCrorey’s land, through eminent domain, to construct a water treatment plant to increase water supply for the growing city.

But McCrorey Heights thrived, becoming home to influential Black educators, clergy, doctors, lawyers, politicians and civil rights activists, such as Reginald Hawkins and Jimmie and Minnie McKee, who opened the historic Excelsior Club.

However, during the ’60s, the city and the state came knocking again. Local officials said they needed to run a highway through the neighborhood.

Residents pleaded with the highway department to find an alternative route. Their main argument: where would they go?

Rev. J.W. Smith told officials that “as a minority, it’s hard to get a first-class place,” according to an April 1962 Charlotte Observer article.

Smith said residents were making an appeal to reroute the highway some 100 feet but “if it was the only way, we wouldn’t stand in the way of the progress of the great city of Charlotte.”

Several houses were moved to what would become Hyde Park, but many were demolished.

“One of the biggest costs Charlotte needs to reckon with is the destruction and the dismemberment of the Black neighborhoods,” said Marilyn Twitty Brown, a long-time McCrorey resident. “These areas, Brooklyn, Biddleville, Dalebrook, McCrorey, were either fragmented or demolished by highway construction. Families were displaced all to get to uptown faster. …

“And we’re still suffering the consequences.”

What’s next for I-77 South?

Some of those consequences are noise, pollution and debris, Twitty Brown said.

Shauna Bell, who lives along Van Buren, said the nearby stormwater drain is constantly clogged from highway debris, which floods her yard.

And for years, McCrorey Heights residents have asked for a noise barrier to be placed on Van Buren Boulevard to block sounds from Brookshire.

Obregon said a barrier couldn’t be erected if it wasn’t tied to an active transportation project.

The I-77 South project is currently looking at potential environmental impacts, such as noise and pollution. Sound barriers could be added around the neighborhood once noise studies are complete.

But ultimately the impact to McCrorey Heights is unknown, according to Canipe and Obregon.

Irwin Creek, which runs next to I-77, may be moved closer to the neighborhood. Oaklawn Avenue Bridge, which was just reconstructed for the I-77 north expansion, may be partially demolished and rebuilt. And if the impact study says homes need to be moved or taken, they will be.

“It doesn’t matter if it’s the I-77 project or turning a two-lane to a four-lane road due to our increased travel demands, there’s no getting around the fact that what we do impacts people’s daily lives,” Canipe said.

Obregon continued, “It’s a tight corridor. We are really trying to work on finding a solution that limits the environmental impacts as well as impacts to the residents.”

What’s next for McCrorey Heights?

NCDOT will host two public meetings on the project: Nov. 12 at Johnson C. Smith and Nov. 13 at Silver Mount Baptist Church.

There, the agency will go over potential plans and residents can voice their opinions.

McCrorey Heights residents are gearing up for the meeting.

At an association meeting Thursday, about 30 residents discussed the I-77 plan and their next steps.

Twitty Brown said the group should reach out to local and state representatives. Staying quiet isn’t an option, she said.

Langley and longtime resident Winston Robinson said the group should come up with a community benefits agreement asking for quality of life improvements including noise barriers, a greenway or a park.

Residents also said they should form coalitions with neighboring areas, including Wesley Heights, which has also pushed back against the I-77 project.

It was hard to come up with anything concrete, as the current plans are vague. It’s also unclear how McCrorey Heights’ historic designation could come into play.

“I want to see the map,” Brayboy said. “And then I’ll raise hell if I have to.”

There was some pessimism in the air. The group knows residents fought for their homes back in the 1960s, but in preparing for the worst, Robinson said those quality of life improvements would be a requirement.

One of the main sentiments was the understanding that Charlotte was growing. It goes back to what Rev. J.W. Smith said in 1962. There is no standing in the way of progress.

But several residents asked why Charlotte’s growth has to come at McCrorey Heights’ expense.

“If the same group of people are constantly being affected and impacted by progress, how is that fair and equitable?” Bell asked. “Yes, there’s growth and yes, there’s progress. Where’s the progress and the growth for that certain group of people?”