I-77 tolls: Will our neighborhoods again have to carry more than their share? | Opinion

The author is a resident of McCrorey Heights, which would be impacted by I-77 tolls proposals.

Charlotte has faced moments like this before.

Moments when infrastructure decisions not only shape traffic patterns, but neighborhood stability, opportunity, and trust.

The I-77 South project is one of those moments.

Congestion along this corridor is real. Safety matters. Mobility matters. Growth is happening.

But growth does not excuse repeating past harm.

This debate has been framed as a binary choice between repeating history and abandoning progress. That framing misses what residents are actually saying.

The question is not whether to improve I-77.

The question is whether engagement happens before decisions are made — or after the path has already been decided.

Engagement matters most before the options are narrowed to two disruptive designs.

When detailed maps were released last November, residents were presented with two choices:

An at-grade widening that would remove homes in neighborhoods –some historic, some not – and displace families either way.

Or an elevated structure that would avoid some displacement but permanently change surrounding communities through increased noise and pollution, visual intrusion and environmental burden.

Those were the choices.

Take houses.

Or live beside a permanent structure of separation.

That is not collaborative problem-solving. It feels like being asked how much harm we are willing to accept.

Some have suggested that Charlotte can move forward responsibly by pairing this project with stronger mitigation and community benefits. Mitigation matters when harm cannot be avoided. But mitigation is not the same as reconsideration.

Charlotte’s history teaches that when disruption happens, its effects last for generations. The lesson is not simply to manage displacement better. It is to avoid defaulting to a 1960s solution when other paths may exist. This corridor runs through and alongside historically Black neighborhoods that have already borne the long-term effects of prior highway construction. My neighborhood, McCrorey Heights, is one of them. For many of us along this corridor, that history shapes how this moment feels.

If this proposal ran through other high-value areas of the city, would the response be to negotiate benefits — or to rethink the design entirely?

At its core, this is about fairness – and about whether we take our own commitments to equity seriously.

Charlotte is growing. That growth brings opportunity and investment to our city.

The question is not whether we should address congestion or improve safety. We should.

The question is whether that growth will be managed in a way that shares both the benefits and the burdens – or whether the same communities will once again be asked to carry more than their share.

We are also told that pausing the project risks losing hundreds of millions of dollars in state funding. That concern is understandable.

But a $4.3 billion investment reflect priorities.

How to spend public dollars should be shaped by policy choices and community values – not something leaders should feel pressure to secure before asking the hard questions about long-term impact. If safety and congestion along I-77 are real concerns — and they are — then funding should follow the best solution not the easiest one.

Design choices should drive funding decisions – not the other way around.

Charlotte’s 2040 Comprehensive Plan commits the city to safe and equitable mobility, connected communities, and reducing over-reliance on single-occupancy vehicles. Infrastructure decisions should reflect those commitments.

It is true that I-77 faces safety and congestion challenges. It is also true that decades of research show that adding lane capacity does not provide lasting congestion relief.

Multi-modal transportation investments – along with safety improvements, interchange redesign, ramp metering, reversible lane operations, and targeted bottleneck solutions – deserve full evaluation before we assume that building higher or wider is the only path forward.

This is not a choice between doing nothing and doing something.

It’s a choice about how thoughtfully we act.

That is why we are asking for a pause — not to abandon progress, but to create space for meaningful engagement and a full evaluation of alternatives before committing to a design that will shape this corridor for generations.

A pause is not stopping progress.

It is shaping it responsibly.

Growth is inevitable.

Sacrifice is not.

This story was originally published March 11, 2026 at 6:00 AM.