CHARLOTTE — Opponents of the Interstate 77 toll lanes proposal want the N.C. Department of Transportation to explain whether — and if so, why — Charlotte is being treated differently than other local governments that have backed away from similar projects.
The three opponents asking those questions are Mecklenburg Board of County Commissioners vice chair Leigh Altman; Matthews Mayor John Higdon; and Davidson Mayor Rusty Knox.
On June 19, Altman and the two mayors sent NCDOT’s Charlotte division engineer, Felix Obregon, an email asking for details on what has been spent to date after the abandonment of the $4.3 billion toll lanes proposal last month and how funding and project commitments were affected in other parts of the state when proposals were later abandoned.
Their email followed State Sen. Vickie Sawyer’s (R-Iredell/Mecklenburg) introduction of a proposal in the state legislature to make all Charlotte area governments collectively repay NCDOT for $64 million worth of preliminary engineering costs and other expenses associated with the toll lanes project.
Read the full story on CBJ’s website here.