Project Overview
Live, Work or Travel Along I-77 South?
Take the I-77 South Express Lanes Community Engagement Survey for an opportunity to share your thoughts, priorities and input. Your feedback is essential to understanding community needs.
Planning and development are underway to upgrade 11 miles of I-77 from the South Carolina state line to I-277/N.C. 16 (Brookshire Freeway) in Mecklenburg County. The project has a total estimated cost of $3.2 billion, including up to $600 million in state funding.
The proposed improvements include the addition of express lanes, reconstruction of interchanges and non-interchange bridges, and addition of access points and direct connectors to the express lanes.
Community Engagement Center
Use the scheduling option to book
an in-person meeting or virtual meeting with the I‑77 South project team.
Per state law, toll projects in North Carolina must be requested and approved by the local planning organization. The Charlotte Regional Transportation Planning Organization submitted this project to the N.C. Department of Transportation for prioritization in 2014.
I-77 is a critical interstate that traverses Charlotte in the north-south direction. It is a major travel corridor for central and western North Carolina as well as the southeastern United States for the movement of both people and goods. Locally, it serves as the most traveled route providing direct access to Uptown Charlotte for residents and businesses. With its current traffic demand, travel times on this segment of I-77 range from 10 minutes to nearly an hour depending on the time of day and direction of travel.
The purpose of the project is to manage congestion by providing an option for reliable travel time along I-77. This includes the implementation of managed travel lanes consistent with recommendations from the
Fast Lanes Study and the Charlotte Regional Transportation Planning Organization’s
2050 Metropolitan Transportation Plan.
Additional benefits include reducing congestion-related crashes, supporting planned economic growth and encouraging transit usage to promote mode shift and improve air quality. The project would also enhance the regional express lanes network with connections to existing express lanes on I-77 and I-485.
I-77 South Express Lanes Introduction
Learn More about Express Lanes in N.C.
Project Funding
This project is listed as Project I-5718 in the
N.C. Department of Transportation's State Transportation Improvement Program as follows;
- South Carolina State Line to I-277/US 74 (Belk Freeway)
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Funded for Preliminary Engineering only in current STIP
- *Funding is subject to change in the upcoming 2028-2037 STIP