‘Bad taste’ on Charlotte transit board over idea for more toll lanes
Regional transportation representatives say they’re suspicious of a secretive proposal to add toll lanes to Interstate 77 in south Charlotte.
NCDOT received the proposal in March from a private firm suggesting a public-private partnership to build toll lanes on I-77, from Brookshire Freeway/I-277 to the South Carolina border. The lanes would be built and maintained by the private company, which state officials have refused to name.
To move forward at all, the project would need approval first from the Charlotte Regional Transportation Planning Organization, which met last Wednesday.
“We all remember in second grade when we got that note passed down, ‘Do you like me? Check yes or no,’” CRTPO Vice-Chair Lisa Qualls said at the meeting. “That’s what this very much is at this point.”
The board held about an hour of discussion, much of which centered on transparency concerns. CRTPO passed a motion to have its Technical Coordinating Committee — a group of transit planners and engineers that makes recommendations to CRTPO — analyze the corridor’s problems and get more information about what the company is proposing.
CRTPO’s motion also asked NCDOT representatives to present more details about the proposal at the board’s September meeting. State officials have said they didn’t solicit the proposal.
Among details undisclosed or not known is the potential cost of the project. State Board of Transportation representative Tony Lathrop told CRTPO that state officials reached out to the proposer but received no response as of Wednesday’s meeting.
The current proposal is not a formal bid. Any future contract would require a competitive bidding process rather than being automatically awarded to the unnamed company.
“I want to reiterate this motion is not an approval ... or an endorsement,” Qualls said. “We are asking for information from TCC on this corridor and from NCDOT to be brought back to us for further consideration.”
’Bad taste’ over I-77 toll lanes
There’s been controversy before surrounding toll lanes in Charlotte. The citizen group Widen I-77 formed in 2012 to oppose the now-complete project that added toll lanes north of the city. The $647 million construction faced enough opposition from I-77 Business Plan, a group with several Republican members, that it endorsed Democrat Gov. Roy Cooper in the 2016 gubernatorial election instead of then-incumbent Republican Pat McCrory.
Even after the lanes opened, developer I-77 Mobility Partners and construction firm Sugar Creek Construction were fined for unfinished work like incomplete noise wall installation.
Because of the previous project’s controversy, the new proposal’s opaqueness concerned several CRTPO members.
Matthews Mayor John Higdon said it’s crucial to learn who the proposer is before seriously considering the deal. He’s concerned the unnamed group is I-77 Mobility Partners or its parent organization, Cintra, who led the toll lane construction. Higdon said he wants “nothing to do” with the company after North Carolina signed what he called one of the worst contracts he’s ever seen.
One of the most controversial clauses in the state’s contract with I-77 Mobility Partners stops it from adding general use lanes or free lanes to stretches of I-77 for 50 years without a fee. Drivers who don’t use express lanes said this will make the roads more clogged in the future than they were before the lanes opened.
“If I’d have signed a contract like that in the corporate world, I would’ve been fired,” Higdon said. “Somebody really won, and the taxpayers of North Carolina lost in my opinion.”
Pineville Mayor Jack Edwards said he’s wary of the new proposal without more detail.
Mecklenburg County Commissioner Pat Cotham said after the past controversy, she’s reluctant to consider similar plans ever again.
“I was very much involved with the debacle that happened on I-77 North and I’m still not over it ... I am 100% opposed to this, and I’m kind of offended that we’re even talking about it,” Cotham said. “This sounds like it could be the same thing all over again.”
She made a substitute motion to take no action on the proposal this week but her motion failed.
Cornelius town commissioner Denis Bilodeau also opposed moving forward with the proposal.
“With the secrecy ... and all that you just described, it doesn’t sound to me that we’re ready to take this seriously,” Bilodeau said. “And admittedly, I have a bad taste about the process that occurred in northern Mecklenburg.”
NCDOT allowing the board to decide whether they should analyze the proposal is an opportunity for CRTPO to avoid the “ugly process” that took place during the I-77 North lane construction, Charlotte Mayor Pro-Tem Julie Eiselt said. Traffic on I-77 to the south is already a problem, Eiselt said, and Charlotte’s growth could make it worse without proactive solutions.
Rick Becker, mayor of Mineral Springs, agreed that CRTPO being given authority to determine if NCDOT should commit further to the proposal is an important step.
“This step is part of the transparency,” Becker said. “I think part of the problem with (I-77 North) is we didn’t even discuss it this much. For us to say we don’t even want the TCC to look at this ... I think we’d be cutting our own throats by saying we don’t want to talk about it.”
This story was originally published July 21, 2022 at 10:27 AM.
