Council withdraws support for I-77 expansion

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by Ashley Fahey

At the end of a marathon Charlotte City Council meeting on Monday, members voted 6-5 to withdraw their support for a controversial expansion of an 11-mile stretch of Interstate 77 South until further study is done.

The council’s representative at Charlotte Regional Transportation and Planning Organization (CRTPO), Ed Driggs, is now tasked with bringing that motion to the full CRTPO body, where the city holds about 41% of the vote. The rescission specifically directs Driggs to remove support for the public-private partnership funding agreement underpinning the I-77 expansion project until more work is done.

The CRTPO next meets on May 20. It’s unclear what would happen to the project, which carries a price tag of at least $3.2B, if the CRTPO votes in accordance with the city.

The N.C. Department of Transportation, which is leading the project, has said multiple times that the project is necessary because of I-77’s congestion and its higher-than-average crash rate. But neighborhoods along the corridor, especially westside communities, have come out fiercely opposed to the project, saying they will be harmed by it because it could require homes to be razed and, they say, would create quality-of-life concerns like noise and air pollution. Many have called for an alternative to the elevated roadway plan that NCDOT has most recently proposed.

The motion to rescind council support for the project was made by council member Renee Johnson, who represents the University area. Just before her motion, council approved in a 10-1 vote a resolution that calls for the NCDOT to pause the project to do additional due diligence.

But, Johnson said, she felt the resolution didn’t go far enough and that a rescission is necessary to give it teeth.

“A pause keeps us moving down the same path. I believe we need to start over and get this right,” she said.

Council members Johnson, Victoria Watlington, LaWana Mayfield, Malcolm Graham, J.D. Mazuera-Arias and Joi Mayo voted in favor of the rescission. Mayor Pro Tem James Mitchell, along with council members Driggs, Dimple Ajmera, Kimberly Owens and Dante Anderson voted “no.”

Before the vote, Mitchell said he previously committed to supporting a rescission last month but has since changed his mind, adding he is “more informed” now and that he didn’t know if a rescission would be in the best interest of the city, given the work done on the resolution. (He also mentioned that he would meet with the Black Political Caucus of Charlotte-Mecklenburg on Sunday, but said he could not support a rescind.)

All council members except Johnson voted to support the resolution, with an amendment by Mazuera-Arias made at the meeting. Since both motions were approved, council adopted the resolution and called for a rescission of support for the project last night.

Outside of the Government Center chamber immediately after the vote, members of the influential Black Political Caucus expressed excitement. Raki McGregor, who chairs the BPC's transportation committee, told The Ledger the rescission vote represented a “long, hard-fought win.”

“This is about congestion, and if you go north on I-77, it is a parking lot,” he continued. “What we’re being told is that this toll lane is going to be different than that toll lane, without any evidence … Other states are dismantling their toll lanes. So why would we spend billions of taxpayer dollars to do that?”

McGregor said the BPC wants to learn, from an independent party, how to move forward on addressing traffic and congestion on I-77. (One member of the BPC pointed out that Mitchell didn’t vote in support of the rescission, adding the BPC is “going to endorse people that's going to do what the people need them to do” — perhaps notable, given the expected fierce competition for Mayor Vi Lyles’ seat amid news of her upcoming resignation and the BPC’s influence in Charlotte.)

Bobby Drakeford, a Charlotte developer and a member of the BPC, said he felt some of the suggestions recommended by Watlington during the discussion, such as a transportation study with UNC Charlotte, should still happen, even with the vote for rescission. “I don’t think it stops just because of this vote,” Drakeford said.

Shannon Binns, executive director of Sustain Charlotte, told The Ledger the organization was happy with the resolution that passed, but even happier that support was rescinded. He told council members earlier on Monday that the organization would be presenting three design concepts as alternatives for I-77 later this week.

“I think [council member Johnson’s] logic is sound that we should stop moving forward and spending a lot of taxpayer dollars, frankly, on this project until we've had a chance to evaluate all the alternatives, do a true side-by-side cost-benefit analysis of toll lanes versus all the ways that cities can tackle this problem,” Binns said.

Ashley Fahey is The Charlotte Ledger’s managing editor. Reach her at [email protected].