I-77 Charlotte-to-SC toll lanes work could start in 5 yrs — with this option, DOT says
Construction of Interstate 77 toll lanes from Charlotte to South Carolina could start in about five years, if elected officials on a regional transportation planning group recommend that a contractor finance, build and manage the lanes, state highway officials said this week.
That’s one of the ways the Charlotte Regional Transportation Planning Organization board could suggest financing long-planned managed lanes for the stretch, N.C. Department of Transportation officials told the board Wednesday night.
The second way: Having NCDOT add the lanes without such a public-private partnership, much like the NCDOT is doing with the I-485 toll or “express” lanes project.
But that would mean construction starting many more years later, officials said. The project has no funding on the statewide list of future transportation improvements, and the earliest that could happen is 2029, said David Roy, chief financial officer of the North Carolina Turnpike Authority.
While privately financed toll lanes could conceivably open in the 2030s, think the 2040s if the state built them through the traditional financing way, state highway officials said.
CRTPO’s crucial role
It’s up to the CRTPO to tell NCDOT which option to pursue, if any, NCDOT Division 10 Engineer Brett Canipe told the CRTPO board.
NCDOT expects the widening to cost $2.1 billion, Canipe said.
The board of the Charlotte-based CRTPO includes mostly elected officials from across the region who decide road and other transportation priorities in the area for NCDOT’s list of future projects.
The CRTPO submitted the I-77 South express lanes project to NCDOT in 2014. The stretch also was part of a “fast-lane” study years earlier, according to an NCDOT timeline of I-77 South expansion plans.
The cost of adding lanes to the stretch is simply too steep for them to be traditional “free” lanes, Mineral Springs Mayor Rick Becker told the Observer on Friday. “That ship has sailed,” he said in an email.
That’s why “both potential I-77 scenarios will result in the addition of toll lanes only,” Becker said. “The difference is simply, will NCDOT’s Turnpike Authority build and operate the managed lanes, or will a private entity build and operate the managed lanes, possibly up to 10-20 years sooner?”
Upcoming vote possible
So what’s next to get the corridor widened with managed lanes?
The CRTPO board could vote Nov. 16 on whether NCDOT should further analyze an unsolicited proposal from Spain-based Cintra in March to build and manage toll lanes along the stretch, CRTPO officials told The Charlotte Observer.
Cintra, among the world’s largest transportation network developers, financed, built and manages the 26 miles of I-77 toll lanes from I-277/Brookshire Freeway to Mooresville.
Cintra’s proposal for the stretch from I-277 to the state line wasn’t a formal offer, Canipe said.
By law, competitive bids would have to be taken if the CRTPO were to ask NCDOT to have a private partner finance and build the toll lanes, highway officials said.
$1 million study
The analysis of Cintra’s proposal would take a year and include an in-depth cost comparison of the public-private partnership model in general and the taxpayer-funded option. The analysis would cost $1 million, most of that money involving the cost comparison, Roy said, not Cintra’s proposal.
If the CRTPO board decides against NCDOT further analyzing Cintra’s proposal, adding the I-77 toll lanes is still in NCDOT’s plans, officials said.
But expect a considerably longer time frame for the lanes to get built if the CRTPO recommends the traditional state-funded option, Roy said.
The earliest the project would receive funding is 2029, he said. Add 10 to 15 years to buy right-of-way, move utilities and build more lanes, according to Roy.
A public-private partnership “could potentially lessen or eliminate some of those funding constraints,” according to an NCDOT statement to The Charlotte Observer on Friday. “But more analysis is needed.”
State highway officials told the board they were simply laying out the choices for widening the highway.
“NCDOT is not advocating for a particular path forward,” NCDOT spokeswoman Jennifer Thompson told the Observer.
At Wednesday’s meeting of the Charlotte Regional Transportation Organization board, Janet LaBar urged the board to support the NCDOT study. LaBar is president and CEO of the Charlotte Regional Business Alliance.
“In the last five years, 85% of crashes on I-77 South were congestion-related,” LaBar said. “We have to continue advancing ideas to ensure safer roads.”
Meanwhile, 40% of the region’s population lives within a 3-mile radius of I-77 South, LaBar said. “And if projections are correct, 700,000 additional residents will call this 3-mile radius home by 2050.”
“It’s just too important of a corridor not to examine comprehensively,” she said.
This story was originally published October 21, 2022 at 6:00 AM with the headline "I-77 Charlotte-to-SC toll lanes work could start in 5 yrs — with this option, DOT says."