CHARLOTTE — Gridlock and slowdowns on the roads affect almost all Mecklenburg County residents, and as the region continues to experience growth, the issue is only going to get worse.
“The streets have been horrific,” Lynn Haynes, a Ballantyne resident, said. “Traffic is horrific.”
Haynes faces the same major problem many of us do every day — thousands of cars on the road and complete gridlock in the morning and evening.
For decades, she’s lived in either Union or South Mecklenburg County. She says traffic is by far the biggest problem she faces, and the biggest culprits are Interstate 485 and Interstate 77.
“I stay off of it when it’s really bad. Like during rush hour in the morning and late in the afternoon.”
[ READ MORE >> Charlotte neighborhood fears I-77 expansion is history repeating itself ]
However, an attempted solution is underway. Toll lanes on I-485 between Highway 74 and I-77 are set to open at the end of February.
Toll lanes for I-77 from the South Carolina state line to Uptown are still up in the air. The North Carolina Department of Transportation estimates 160,000 cars use the southern portion of roadway every day.
“I expect that a project will get done and I’m afraid that there will be some people who are still unhappy as a result,” Ed Driggs, a member of the Charlotte Regional Transportation Planning Organization, said.
Along with serving on the CRTPO, Driggs also represents many south Charlotte residents on city council. The organization evaluates infrastructure projects in the region and decides how they can proceed.
“You can’t really manage the growth,” he said. “People decide to come here. You like that fact that they want to come here, and there are benefits to having them come here, but there are also disruptions and there are challenges.”
Driggs says the toll lanes will ease congestion by attracting enough cars to open up space in the free lanes. While that’s the plan for both interstates, the I-77 toll lanes have seen much more backlash.
“The idea of adding toll lanes to solve traffic congestion is really a dated idea,” Shannon Binns, executive director of Sustain Charlotte said.
Sustain Charlotte opposes the I-77 project. Binns says toll lanes don’t work because they only help people who can afford them.
“It’s solving congestion for a few and leaving the many to continue to be stuck in traffic that will only get worse,” Binns said.
He says the entire project needs to be reimagined and that the best solution is giving an existing lane to buses.
“With the space of maybe one bus, you can move 50 people, right? Which is the same amount of road space as a couple of cars moving two people.”
At a recent CRTPO meeting, Driggs said he still believes I-77 needs changes, but he’s willing to find a compromise. Part of that would take money from the new transportation tax to add more bus and train services. He says it will be tough to make everyone happy.
If the current plan for I-77 goes forward, construction is estimated to start in 2030.
Sustain Charlotte wants the DOT to study alternatives. Transportation officials said they will continue to try to minimize impacts to neighborhoods and other communities.
VIDEO: Growing student population strains Cabarrus County elementary school
This browser does not support the video element.