Opposition to I-77 Toll Lanes Grows with Proposed Design Release

Al Austin knows just how destructive a highway can be. As a child growing up in Lincoln Heights, he witnessed how the construction of I-77 tore through his community at Newland Road and LaSalle Street more than 50 years ago. 

“I watched families disappear, I watched friends move away from neighborhoods like Lincoln Heights, Dalebrook, McCrorey Heights, Double Oaks, Druid Hills, Oaklawn Park,” Austin recalled while addressing the Charlotte Regional Transportation Planning Organization on Wednesday night. “Communities that were full of life were sliced in half.” 

Austin was there with a slew of others who also spoke against the planned addition of toll lanes along an 11-mile stretch of I-77 from the South Carolina state line to I-277. The plan threatens dozens of homes in historic neighborhoods like McCrorey Heights, communities with a rich history for Black Charlotteans.  

“Now after decades, instead of repairing and reconnecting these communities after past harm, we’re now being asked again to accept even more destruction, more construction, more concrete, more pollution, more loss,” said Austin, a former Charlotte City Council member who is now president of the Third Ward Neighborhood Association. 

“Our neighborhoods have carried the burden of these decisions for generations, and we’re still feeling the weight of them today,” he continued. “We need more green space and not more gray slabs. I’m asking you respectfully, passionately and directly to reconsider your support for this project plan as it stands … Let’s restore and not destroy.” 

Austin’s impassioned plea was one of seven made during CRTPO’s final board meeting of the year. Joining him was an 11-year-old girl who lives in McCrorey Heights, the president of the McCrorey Heights Neighborhood Association, and others concerned with the impacts of the proposed project. 

NC DOT presents its plans for I-77 South toll lanes

The NC Department of Transportation (NCDOT) presented proposed designs for the project during two community meetings on Nov. 12 and 13 — one at Johnson C. Smith University and another at Silver Mount Baptist Church on Arrowood Road near I-77 exit 3. 

Queen City Nerve attended the latter meeting, where folks were able to view large depictions of the proposed plans for each affected interchange on posterboard. The designs had been making the rounds on social media in the week leading up to the meetings. 

One specific rendering of the southernmost interchange between I-77 and I-277 drew more ire than the others for its chaotic design, something that NC Turnpike Authority spokesperson Logen Hodges acknowledged at the Arrowood meeting on Nov. 13. 

“That’s the whole purpose, right?” Hodges said. “You want to hear folks, positive and negative, because that gives us the info we need to fine-tune the footprint of the project and fine-tune side-street improvements, improvements to bridges. How can we make sure that this project delivers the benefits but also minimizes the impacts?” 

Originating as part of the regional transportation plan in 2007, the CRTPO officially requested that NCDOT move forward with the project in October 2024. 

Read more: NC DOT Presents I-77 South Toll Lane Plan (2024)

The mid-November meetings followed a slate of 25 “small group meetings” that NCDOT began hosting in January. NCDOT is still facilitating a survey on its website, where residents can also check out proposed designs and other details. The survey runs through Dec. 5. 

NCDOT is proposing two styles of design for the $3.2-billion project: at-grade express lanes, which would involve widening the highway as was done to add toll lanes to the northern stretch of I-77, and elevated lanes, which would be built over the roadway like a bridge running above the existing lanes. There’s also an “elevated to the east” option that would elevate the lanes but still place them next to the existing highway. 

The at-grade selection as it’s designed would involve the destruction of around 80 homes in a number of neighborhoods along the route including the historically Black McCrorey Heights neighborhood, founded by then-Johnson C. Smith University President Rev. H.L. McCrorey in 1912. 

“Our promise and priority is to minimize impacts while also delivering the project we’ve been requested by CRTPO to deliver,” said Hodges. “So that’s going to mean, how can we get creative in the design? That’s why we’re looking at elevated segments of the express lanes. If we elevate the express lanes above the existing lanes or to the side, would that prevent some impacts to local neighborhoods? If that’s a possibility, that’s what we’re going to try to do.” 

As CRTPO is the only body with the authority to recall the project, opposition speakers on Wednesday called on them to reconsider moving forward with any of the proposed designs. 

At-large CRTPO member Stephen Rosenberg assured residents that the project is far from finalized as there is still much to be considered and agreed upon before any construction moves forward. 

NCDOT plans to hold public hearings in 2026, with no timeline yet set for construction. 

Multiple speakers on Wednesday suggested forgoing the proposed designs for one that would bring both the existing lanes and added express lanes underground, similar to Boston’s “Big Dig” project. 

“I really would like to see the board come up with innovative ideas that reconnect our community, create land that the city can benefit from, can build businesses on, and create new pathways through the city,” said Chris Hood, a resident of the Biddleville-Smallwood neighborhood, “instead of taking more cars, dumping them into the same grid and just creating logjams in our city.” 

CRTPO member and Mecklenburg County commissioner Leigh Altman committed Wednesday to ensuring that feedback gathered during the community engagement process does not go ignored, as has been the pattern for past projects like this one, she said. 

“On behalf of the Mecklenburg Board of County Commissioners, we refuse to let that cycle continue,” Altman said. “We want to understand what commitments will be made in response to the concerns made and how those commitments will be monitored, measured and honored, including those tied to past harms, environmental health, economic mobility and financial wellbeing.”