Charlotte Mayor Questions Toll Lanes

“We don’t want to get so far down the road that we end up in the situation like we got into with I-77 North,” says Clodfelter.

 

The mayor is asking the city’s Transportation and Planning Committee to take a closer look at plans to add managed lanes to Independence Boulevard and I-485, trying to avoid the kind of heated opposition the state is facing over future toll lanes on Interstate 77. 

 

“I think we’re trying to learn why it is that the state seems to think that the managed lane solution is a workable way of managing those two roadways,” says Clodfelter.

 

“We can’t ignore the fact that we’re introducing something brand new to our citizens when we talk about managed lanes, and managed lanes meaning tolls,” says Charlotte city council member Vi Lyles.

 

Lyles serves on the regional transportation planning committee which approved the plan to add managed lanes to I-77.

 

The state has said that is the only way to add additional lanes. Residents and businesses call the process secretive, and a misuse of taxpayer dollars.

 

“When a citizen asks ‘How is this going to work?’, we all ought to be able to describe how it will work,” says Lyles. “And yes, I think we’re being responsive to that.”

 

Mayor Clodfelter says improvements to US 74 and I-485 are different than what’s happening on I-77, and do not have to be financed through toll projects. The former legislator says the state has sufficient funding in its transportation improvement program to do those projects without tolling. 

 

“We’ve got to understand what the benefit is of tolling those roads from a traffic management standpoint,” says Clodfelter. “And right now I think there are a lot of unanswered questions.”

 

The toll lanes on I-77 are scheduled to open in 2018. The project is estimated at $655 million, with the state only paying $95 million up front.