CORNELIUS The state plans to convert Interstate 77's high-occupancy vehicle lanes into toll lanes and extend them to Exit 28 in Cornelius, the chairman of the Lake Norman Transportation Commission announced Wednesday night.

The $64.6 million project is expected to be approved in July by the N.C. Board of Transportation as part of the latest state Transportation Improvement Plan. Approval of the plan is usually a formality.

Work is scheduled to begin in late 2014 or early 2015, said Mitch Abraham, who also is a Mooresville commissioner. The HOV lanes, one northbound and one southbound, now extend from Charlotte to near I-485 south of Huntersville.

Construction would take about three years, said Carroll Gray, the commission's executive director.

The toll lanes would still be free to vehicles carrying at least two people. CATS buses and van pools would also use the lanes without charge.

Motorists traveling alone could use the lanes if they paid a toll. The price would vary depending on time of day - tolls would be higher during the most congested hours.

An I-77 task force led by Abraham unanimously endorsed the toll lanes concept in April 2010.

The panel said high-occupancy toll lanes - or HOT lanes - would reduce congestion and bring the proposed widening of I-77 sooner by putting toll revenues into building more lanes.

Some toll revenues would also pay for law enforcement to watch for motorists trying to cheat the system at toll booths.

The Lake Norman Transportation Commission and its I-77 task force include representatives from Mooresville and northern Mecklenburg County, including town commissioners and town managers and planners.

Interstate 77 now has 18 miles of HOV lanes southbound and 14 miles northbound, giving it one of the longest HOV stretches in the country, Lynn Purnell, a civil engineer for consultant Parsons Brinckerhoff, has told the I-77 task force.

The Mecklenburg-Union Metropolitan Planning Organization, which oversees development of the transportation system in the counties, had endorsed extending the lanes to Mooresville eventually, Abraham said.

Barry Moose, division engineer in the N.C. Department of Transportation's Albemarle office, was scheduled to announce the state's HOT plans at Wednesday's meeting but couldn't attend because of a family illness.

Moose told the Observer late Wednesday that he added the project to the state Transportation Improvement Plan after MUMPO in late April backed converting the HOV lanes into toll lanes.

Abraham wants I-77 four-laned in both directions to Statesville eventually.

"Everybody's pulling for I-77 to be widened," Abraham told the commission Wednesday. "All we can do is keep up our efforts. I want eight lanes... four in each direction."