Exit 3A on I-277: Inside Charlotte’s Most Hated Interchange – Charlotte Magazine

You take Exit 3A off the northbound lanes of Interstate 277 and onto East 12th Street. Perhaps you’re on your way to quaff some beer at Birdsong Brewing or wine at Rosie’s. Maybe you’re headed to Saturdays in NoDa. Whatever the reason, you’ve got about two seconds—just 220 feet—to cross two lanes of traffic, left to right, to turn right on North Davidson Street.

Shit! You hit your brakes as a car almost careens into your passenger side. The driver is trying to cross your path, right to left, to either turn left on North Davidson or merge onto 277. The car cuts in front of you. You start to move forward again, but (brake)—now traffic is backed up because the traffic light at Davidson has turned red. You’re stuck, turn signal flashing, hoping you can get to the far-right lane before someone rear-ends you. If you weren’t headed somewhere with alcohol before, you are now.

There’s a lot to hate about driving in Charlotte. First there’s—bless our hearts—the drivers. Our city of transplants is comprised of folks who learned how to drive in all kinds of environments with all kinds of road rules. Some drivers confuse I-277 with Charlotte Motor Speedway. Others signal the wrong direction before turning, or drive backwards up a one-way, or run red lights, or have zero clue how to use a four-way stop. A couple of years ago, I watched a driver in Dilworth turn left on red into a woman pushing a stroller on a crosswalk. (Thankfully, everyone was fine.) Just last month, I witnessed two rear-endings in less than an hour. The Queen City ranked 15th in the country for bad drivers in a Forbes Advisor study published this year, and the ranking shocks only because it’s so low.

As if our drivers needed the challenge, our roads are as organized as a plate of spaghetti. Along those twisted noodle-roads are plenty of interchanges that deserve special distinction for their straight-up-stupid layouts. There’s the spot where Independence Boulevard splits from 277. There’s the diverging diamond interchange at I-485 and Mallard Creek Road. The sharp left curve to I-77 South from I-85 South’s Exit 38 will about turn your car over. Most 277 interchanges leave a lot to be desired.

But none is more despised than I-277 Northbound’s Exit 3A. There are countless memes and Reddit threads about it: “I take this exit when I really want to f*ck with fate,” one Reddit user wrote. “Have your life insurance in order,” said another. “I’m making a video game based on Exit 3A,” wrote a third. “I’m buying,” someone replied. “It will be the most challenging yet satisfying game of all time.”

Exit 3A was designed more than a half-century ago, when Charlotte’s metro population was around 281,000 people (today, it’s 2.8 million). Deputy Division 10 Engineer Sean Epperson of the North Carolina Department of Transportation says it was probably designed in the late 1960s along with Brookshire Freeway’s predecessor, the Northwest Expressway. He holds up a piece of paper: The State Highway Commission’s design for the interchange, finalized in 1970, is so old that there’s a handwritten note on it that reads, “NOT ONLINE – DO NOT DISCARD.” On another page of the plan, engineers predicted that 2,100 cars per day would use Exit 3A by 1995. Twelve thousand cars used it each day in 2022, Epperson says.

Epperson laughs when I ask him what he thinks of the exit’s design. “First of all, it wasn’t an interstate when they designed it,” he replies, “so they weren’t even necessarily designing to freeway standards at the time. … But, yeah, we all know that all of I-277 has interchanges that are more closely spaced than we would prefer.”

So when will it be updated to handle the current throngs of cars? While there’s no plan solely dedicated to fixing the disaster that is Exit 3A, there is a three-part plan to overhaul I-277 as a whole. It’s … lofty. The state and Charlotte DOTs published a study in 2013 that found that the interstate has a slew of troublesome interchanges, traffic congestion, “severe safety hazards,” and “geometric design issues.” Traffic has only worsened since then.

“We’re all aware of the congestion issues on 277,” Epperson says. In 2015, his Division 10 team at NCDOT—responsible for the Charlotte region—drew up the redesign of 277, which includes adding lanes and lengthening and consolidating ramps. “There are less exit points on the future plan than there are today,” Epperson says, particularly in the third segment, from Davidson Street to Johnson Street, that contains Exit 3A. “And then each ramp itself is significantly longer.”

All three segments of Division 10’s redesign were automatically resubmitted to NCDOT’s Strategic Transportation Investments (STI) prioritization process this year. The entire project has an estimated cost of $717 million, with segment three by far the most expensive at $442 million. 

During STI, NCDOT assesses all submitted projects in North Carolina using “a data-driven scoring process with local input.” Then it’ll determine which projects will be funded and scheduled over the next 10 years as part of its 2026-2035 Statewide Transportation Improvement Program (STIP). This is the third time NCDOT Division 10 has submitted the I-277 project to STI, a process that happens every two years. Epperson says it’s not expected to be accepted this year, either.

The Charlotte Regional Business Alliance predicts that Charlotte’s metro population will grow to nearly 4.6 million people by 2050. According to my layman’s math, that could mean almost 20,000 cars using Exit 3A each day—8,000 more than today. Of course, there are many factors that can and will affect actual future usage, but it’ll undoubtedly continue to increase. 

Even if the I-277 redesign eventually gets approved, imagine the absolute chaos that’ll ensue as NCDOT shuts down portions for construction. Any way you slice it, traffic on and adjacent to 277 will get worse before it gets better. Thoughts and prayers for all of us.

At least we can unite over our misery and find humor in our situation, lest we cry. A couple of years ago, a Reddit user created a thread that asked people to nickname Exit 3A. Among the responses: Malfunction Junction, DO OR DIE Noda Exit Challenge, The Eliminator, The Toilet Bowl, Population Control, and—my personal favorite—the Cha Cha Slide exit.