New Charlotte I-77 toll lanes will stop at the state line. Will SC extend them?
South Carolina transportation officials want to see if new toll lanes from Charlotte to the state line ought to keep going into York County.
A $3 million study by the South Carolina Department of Transportation will look at toll lane or road widening options from Exit 88 at Gold Hill Road to Interstate 485 just past the North Carolina line on Interstate 77.
That’s a three-mile stretch that functions well now on the South Carolina side, state Secretary of Transportation Justin Powell told The Herald on Friday. It may not work well, he said, if North Carolina adds new lanes.
“What we have begun is a discussion about ... how can we make sure that a border transition works well for South Carolinians that are going into North Carolina?” Powell said.
Details on how many lanes, costs or how they might work in conjunction with new lanes in North Carolina haven’t been determined. “These are the whether-the-math-works discussions,” Powell said.
Charlotte plans I-77 toll lanes to South Carolina
The $3.2 billion I-77 Express Lanes Project would run 11 miles from Brookshire Freeway in Charlotte to the state line beside Carowinds.
Interchanges and bridges would be reconstructed to add express lanes. The project has been more than a decade in the making, with plans for construction contracts set for mid-2027.
Express lanes, or voluntary toll lanes, would be similar to ones north of uptown Charlotte.
There are eight lanes of I-77 at the state line, four in each direction. The express lane plan would make it 10 lanes on the North Carolina side.
That’s a potential bottleneck within 2,000 feet of the Exit 90 Carowinds Boulevard interchange that has an ongoing $2 million state study and nearly $64 million in state infrastructure bank money for improvements.
About 40% of the drivers crossing the state line on the interstate live in South Carolina, Powell said.
“My interest is in effective border crossings so that right now the morning backup doesn’t get flipped to an afternoon backup,” he said, “which is what we’re headed toward with the current plan.”
SC history with road border problems
Interstates dropping their lane counts quickly can cause traffic headaches. South Carolina’s most notorious site, Powell said, is Interstate 95 at the Georgia border.
Georgia widened its side of the interstate to eight lanes without any upgrades in South Carolina. An ongoing $825 million widening project to fix that spot includes the largest construction project SCDOT ever signed, at more than $728 million.
South Carolina and Georgia learned from that incident and worked in conjunction for upgrades where Interstate 20 crosses into Augusta, Georgia. Powell sees a similar opportunity with the Charlotte toll lanes.
“Anything that’s going on on their side of the line is going to impact on our side of the line,” he said.
North Carolina reached out to South Carolina about coordination, Powell said. There’s already a problem at Interstate 485 just north of the state line, where two lanes headed toward South Carolina merge into three southbound lanes. “It’s not a well-functioning transition right now,” Powell said. “This (Charlotte project) has the potential to worsen it.”
North Carolina is looking to add lanes doesn’t necessarily tie South Carolina into doing something similar. “My interest is really just making sure that it works for South Carolina,” Powell said.
Toll lane plans will take time in South Carolina
Elected officials expect plenty of interest if the project moves forward in York County, but not yet.
“There’s really nothing substantive to talk about at this point,” said Rock Hill Mayor John Gettys. “Going forward, I want to make sure that we give that public comment period locally.”
If the North Carolina project goes to a construction contract in two years, it could take another four or five years to build the lanes. York County has seen hundreds of millions of dollars put toward interchanges in the past decade.
The Charlotte project, without any South Carolina addition, would reconfigure or rebuild 14 interchanges.
“Think how long it takes to build one,” said David Hooper, administrator with the Rock Hill-Fort Mill Area Transportation Study. “This is not something that’s going to happen overnight.”
Challenges await toll road plans
Toll lanes into Fort Mill aren’t a done deal.
The state legislature would need to look at possible changes related to partnering with the Charlotte project. Powell expects those discussions will happen next year. This area also has the Exit 85 interchange at S.C. 160 under construction at $147 million.
Nearly a decade from now, toll lane construction could come while Hooper’s group is building the $106 million Exit 82 interchange at Cherry and Celanese roads in Rock Hill. It wouldn’t be feasible to have both jobs under construction at the same time, he said.
The study on partnering with the North Carolina toll lanes comes from separate funding that doesn’t impact any other road construction jobs in the area, Powell said. When the study is done, the state would look at designs, routes and how to make the toll lanes happen — if they’re feasible.
“We’ve got to take that first step,” Powell said.
