[ad_1]
Knikouyeh@charlotteobserver.com
Charlotte City Council committed to vote on a 60-day pause on the Interstate 77 toll lane project as a raucous crowd demanded action during Monday night’s meeting.
Council members are in near unanimous agreement to stop the project, at least temporarily. They’ll take a formal vote during next week’s meeting, Mayor Vi Lyles said. The vote, if passed, would direct Charlotte’s representative to a regional transportation board to bring up the issue on the city’s behalf. The City Council’s transportation committee will also discuss the issue next week.
The council cannot unilaterally stop the project, which is overseen by the North Carolina Department of Transportation, according to Lyles and City Attorney Andrea Leslie-Fite.
But city leaders say they wield another power: political influence.
“The message is simple: We’ve got to slow this down,” said District 5 councilman J.D. Mazuera Arias. “We control whether we signal that the process has earned the community’s trust, whether we say engagement has been sufficient and whether we lend political legitimacy to advancing a project at this moment. And tonight, I do not believe that legitimacy has been earned.”
Opponents of the I-77 project packed the chamber with signs in hand and spilled into an overflow room. Chief among their concerns was a lack of transparency and engagement from NCDOT, they said.
Shannon Binns, founder of nonprofit Sustain Charlotte and a leading opposition voice, was the first to speak. Binns said his organization was one of two dozen community groups organized against the new toll lanes on I-77, including the Black Political Caucus and the Southern Environmental Law Center.
“The people in this room … are not asking for another conversation with NCDOT,” Binns said. “Whether or not you believe you have formal authority, you have influence. And we ask you to use it.”
Some heckled city leaders from the crowd, with a small group interrupting Lyles to chant “stop the expansion.” They exited the chamber after about a minute and continued their chant from the lobby.
Councilwoman Kimberly Owens asked the governor to intervene if Charlotte cannot force a pause.
Owens wants NCDOT to “show the work” it used to draw up its plans. A 60-day pause gives local leaders time to ask hard questions, review the transportation department’s data and consider alternatives.
“Should not the benefit be greater than the harm? Where is the proof that diminution in congestion is worth the destruction of homes and businesses?” Owens said.
Councilwoman Renee Perkins Johnson attempted to add a vote on the issue to Monday night’s agenda, which would have required unanimous agreement from the council. Ed Driggs, who leads the council’s transportation committee, blocked her motion with the only dissenting vote and forced council to wait another week before taking up the issue.
“Leadership is not about saying that our hands are tied. It’s about asking who tied them and why,” said at-large councilwoman Dimple Ajmera.
Who can pause the I-77 South project?
While most city council members want to pause the project, the board with the voting power is the Charlotte Regional Transportation Planning Organization, which looks at urban transportation improvements in Iredell, Mecklenburg and Union counties. Driggs is the city’s representative on that board, which is known as the CRTPO.
The board approved a funding mechanism for the project last year, which is a public-private partnership. The state committed to $600 million toward the project, while the rest would be paid by a private developer.
The board had the ability to rescind its support of the project “at any point” until NCDOT began soliciting interest from contractors via requests for qualifications, according to the motion approved by the group. NCDOT began that process in August, two months before the map was revealed.
Driggs said he is sympathetic to the community’s concerns but noted their opposition wasn’t clear until it was too late for the board to intervene.
His statements were not well received by Shauna Bell, a resident of McCrorey Heights, which would be impacted under the current design.
“When you put a map out that shows an interstate through my house, then yes I’m going to pay attention. It feels like he’s trying to say, well, y’all should have done this before,” Shauna Bell said. “In 2014 there weren’t maps. There weren’t maps until November of 2025. So I just want him to understand that that comment is not great.”
Charlotte isn’t the only government entity with concerns about the project. At the CRTPO’s Feb. 18 meeting, Weddington Mayor Jim Bell said he was shocked to learn CRTPO had no say in the design or choosing a developer.
“This board needs to have control back,” Jim Bell said.
Several CRTPO members said they felt slighted by NCDOT’s design proposal, which wasn’t presented to the committee, according to Mecklenburg Commissioner and CRTPO member Leigh Altman.
Altman said a NCDOT representative has not been back to the committee to discuss the design plans since CRTPO voted on the funding mechanism in 2024.
Altman noted that a CRTPO subcommittee worked with NCDOT to set parameters to the project that included a discount program for low-income residents and toll rate caps, which weren’t included in existing the I-77 tolls to the north of Charlotte.
Had a design been revealed, Altman said, board members could’ve included protections for the impacted neighborhoods.
Altman has asked the CRTPO’s attorney to look over the agreement between the board and NCDOT to see if CRTPO can pause the project.
That answer may be revealed at the board’s next meeting in March. If the answer is “no,” Altman said the request would need to go to the state’s Secretary of Transportation Daniel Johnson.
History of I-77 South Toll Lanes
State and regional transportation planners began discussing the addition of toll lanes to the I-77 corridor in 2007. The project began with the northern part of I-77 that goes from Charlotte to the Lake Norman area, which opened in December 2020.
The I-77 South Express Lanes project was put on a long-range planning document in 2014. And was finally approved last year.
In November, NCDOT released two proposed design plans for the project.
Some of the maps showed roadways going through people’s homes. There were also encroachments on the grounds of Pinewood Cemetery, a historically Black cemetery, and Frazier Park in uptown.
NCDOT went with a proposal elevating toll lanes in the uptown portion of the project near McCrorey Heights. That plan would see the construction of express lanes either over the existing interstate or to the side of the existing interstate.
The elevated plan was chosen to reduce property impact to the McCrorey Heights and Wesley Heights neighborhoods, NCDOT said. It would also minimize impact on Frazier Park and Pinewood Cemetery. But it’s still unclear whether NCDOT will need to take homes in order for the plan to come to fruition.
The maps gave residents déjà vu.
Using eminent domain in the late 1960s, more than 240 families were displaced in the West End to make way for the Brookshire Freeway and Interstates 77, 85 and 277.
It fragmented Black neighborhoods in the area and separated them from each other and the rest of the city.
This story was originally published February 23, 2026 at 9:41 PM.
Desiree Mathurin covers growth and development for The Charlotte Observer. The native New Yorker returned to the East Coast after covering neighborhood news in Denver at Denverite and Colorado Public Radio. She’s also reported on high school sports at Newsday and southern-regional news for AP. Desiree is exploring Charlotte and the Carolinas, and is looking forward to taking readers along for the ride. Send tips and coffee shop recommendations.
[ad_2]
Nick Sullivan,Desiree Mathurin
Source link
