Published in The Charlotte Business Journal as a guest opinion article, May 22, 2026

What a bold and refreshing move by Charlotte City Council in their response to the Interstate 77 project.

Those voices that opposed the original N.C. Department of Transportation plan, be they neighborhood watchdogs or individual citizens impacted by the plan, or advocates for more park space on top of buried highway, are not wrong. But they are not addressing the full impact of what has been served up to us. And, with the latest proposals, they are not addressing the full challenge, and opportunity, before us.

Neighborhood impacts and park space are but two legs of a three-legged stool. So, as we go down this path to address the wrongs of the NCDOT plan to a neighborhood, we must not simply fall under the spell of the park argument. This whole issue, at its core, is an economic one. Which means that those in the community (and the other half of City Council) who rightly raise their voices and concerns regarding economic development are very much in the right.

Their analysis, and particularly the solutions of the Charlotte Regional Business Alliance, are simply wrong.

The May 20 vote by the Charlotte Regional Transportation Planning Organization to kill the proposed addition of toll lanes was clearly the right decision for Charlotte.

Here’s why.

This was a major infrastructure project that would determine the form and the life of the inner city for the next 60 or so years. 

Where was Charlotte 60 years ago? Well, I-77 and I-277 existed only on paper. The banks were still North Carolina National Bank and First Union. No skyscrapers to speak of. And white Charlotte lived in the suburbs.

The Brooklyn community was in the process of being razed. South End and other urban areas weren’t even ideas. And the Five Points and other West End communities were emerging out of Jim Crow and still connected to what was then known as downtown.

That is, all of the things and the life we now consider “Urban Charlotte” became manifest largely in the last 60 years.

The question about “long term” impacts of a reimagined I-77 is the question. Why do we think that the next 60 years will not bring an ever-increasing demand for growth in our inner city, with newcomers and existing citizens alike demanding a more robust, walkable, dynamic, more car-free and — yes, equitable place to live?

Just this month, the news broke that Charlotte added more people last year than any other U.S city. This growth bubble is exactly what we have seen in the past 30 years powering growth in the center city, South End and other new, emerging urban developments along the Blue Line, and other pockets in our inner-city neighborhoods. We know this is true. So, why would we not expect our infrastructure — that is, the impact upon and the accommodation of a high-quality urban environment — to be in alignment with these realities?

When citizens of the West End neighborhoods rightly raise issues about equity, livability and connectedness to the center city, they are not only raising their voices for those directly impacted by NCDOT’s plan. It is for all of us.

These issues are ones that go to the core of what it means to plan for a future Charlotte. They echo — reinforce and make real — the type of place that all recent planning studies, policies and laws of Charlotte have diligently put in place. Nowhere in our plans are there calls for a 1960s-era freeway — one that divided the West Side and its people from the rest of the city — to double down upon its original harm. To propose such a plan in 2026 embodies a lack of imagination. The tyranny of the normal, if you will. For this city to accept it would be much worse.

Let’s start with the fact that the inner city leg of I-77 encompasses over 100 acres of what would be highly valuable land if in private hands. With land in uptown and South End averaging on the low end around $10 million an acre, that’s somewhere around $100 million, and possibly more, of raw land value. If I-277 was sunk below and a cap placed on top it, then at least 75% of this “new” land on top and on the side could be harvested for both economic development and housing for a broad range of workers critical to the local economy. In between would be urban “greens” — urban recreation, squares and smaller natural parks that together with the street level development would create the kind of connected urbanism that would leverage Charlotte growth well into the future.

To be clear, I am not talking about an undertaking as massive or as costly as the 12-mile long Central Artery (the “Big Dig”) in Boston, but only the Five Points segment between the I-277 interchanges. However, if you have visited Boston since it was completed, and knew the situation beforehand, you know the transformation.

Even Lexington, North Carolina, population 19,632, where my firm for 15 years has been assisting the city in its active plan to bring Amtrak and NCDOT Rail to its downtown, is committed to civic funding to complete the last component: a mixed-use district and transit hub. Are we in Charlotte so less than Boston, and even Lexington, that we are incapable of peering into the future and crafting an equally positive outcome for such a relatively small, but important, segment of I-77?

Clearly, the menu of public funding needs to be fully explored, along with the downstream benefits of the private sector plugging in either directly (with a toll road operator) or indirectly into these mechanisms. A host of funding streams — not the least including a tax increment financing district for all the center city — should be on the menu for consideration to augment state and federal funds.

A more urban solution, beginning with tunnels and capping of ground level highway segments, will return and create more urban land into development sites whose financial impact in terms of property tax could offset some of the costs. Even at a modest height of six stories the development could yield 2 million square feet of varied uses, at a tax value of $1 billion, and yield around $7.6 million of taxable income annually to the city and the county.

There is also a bigger regional consideration. All should acknowledge that the logistical impacts of rebuilding the entire length of I-77 from center city to the South Carolina line will, in and of itself, create economic disruption for over a decade. Our center city segment — arguably the most important one — is but one of nine along its path. As to the regional and interstate moving of goods, we need not forget that we have I-485 as an alternate route not only during construction, but as part of a larger, long-term solution to decrease the interstate traffic on the I-77 segments permanently.

Businesspeople and all citizens need to have faith in our future, to see it clearly and to plan for it. For example, when my partner and I, along with Tony Pressley, Gaines Brown and many others proposed a new district called South End in 1994, we were labeled heretics by many. The vision for this new district was codified as part of a larger transit idea (the Charlotte Trolley, which morphed into the CATS Blue Line) through the assistance of Hugh McColl (in his role as chairman of Charlotte Center City Partners) and its then-president, Rob Walsh.

The whole idea, while touting the then-novel benefits of walkable urbanism, was grounded in economic development. In fact, in communication materials back then we called it a “two-mile economic development zone.” The proposal still had critics, but only for a while. Once it was clear that the Blue Line was going to be a reality all our economic projections were exceeded, and by healthy margins.

And relative to our past, we need to learn from our mistakes along the path of change. I haven’t met anyone who doesn’t bemoan the ills that flowed out of the destruction of Brooklyn.

Equally, we champions of South End and boosters of the Blue Line failed to see — much less plan for — a spiraling lack of affordable housing for the many citizens priced out by the new city we are building. This was our city’s collective “blind spot.”

Critical workers in all facets of Charlotte fall into this category. The many who, once priced out of the city, retreat to Rock Hill, Monroe and Gastonia to find places they can afford. They then create more demand upon our regional road networks as they add to their monthly budgets for travel, a zero-sum game for their families and for all of us. Not a good path to trod for our city’s future.

Hopefully, the planning for the next phases of our transit planning will acknowledge this blind spot. This principle should also apply with changes to I-77, too.

By the way, the Five Points Forward Plan, prepared by and for the West End, conceptually presents an approach for I-77 that addresses many of the concerns mentioned here. Building upon these ideas, a tunnel for the toll lanes coupled to an appropriate, “right sized” cover over the existing freeway, along with restricted ramps designed to fit within an urban context, can not only connect but create “new” lands for development to generate housing and employment for those who need it.

If we, as a city, grasp the opportunity to truly reconnect our West End to center city, and heal the wounds created 60 years ago, and create opportunity for those who make this city run, we will all benefit. Doing so will require an act of public will, and bold leadership.