City of Statesville votes in favor of the I-77 South Express Toll Lanes
On Monday night the City of Statesville city council voted 7-1 to vote in favor of I-77 South Express Toll Lanes at the September 16, 2026 CRTPO Board meeting.
In 2014, Charlotte Regional Transportation Planning Organization (CRTPO) submitted the I-77 South Express Toll Lane Project into the STIP for funding. This stretch of interstate construction started from uptown Charlotte down to the South Carolina border. This project was estimated to be $3.2 billion with $6 million coming from the state of North Carolina.
The CRTPO is the official federal planning organization of counties Iredell, Mecklenburg, and Union.
In Oct. 2024, CRTPO provided the North Carolina Department of Transportation (NC-DOT) with a resolution to move forward with the Public-Private Partnership (P3) delivery process. “They did say that this was the only way to move the project forward. This P3 funding delivery process was going to be the fastest timeline and the least amount of public taxes covering for this,” said Tamaria Weeks, Transportation Planner for City of Statesville.
Council Member David Jones added his comments about the process. “The planning started way beyond 2024,” said Jones. “The planning for most of these transportation projects can be up to ten years. This has been in the books and studied for years.”
Jones explains how CRTPO is a planning organization to include all of the municipalities within those counties. Each one of the counties has to vote, with a total of 74 votes. Charlotte makes up 31 of votes. “Charlotte carries the weight in the vote, as they should, because a lot of that is based on population. That is how CRTPO is structured,” said Jones.
Jones adds how CRTPO does not have a say in the design of the transportation infrastructure but the NC Department of Transportation does. “When the design got brought to the public, then the citizens of Charlotte were up in arms,” said Jones.
“It came on the agenda not as a scheduled vote, but as an unscheduled agenda item,” said Jones. “What happened was the chairman of the DOT was in the room, and all senior North Carolina DOT officials were in the room and no one could identify the impact of voting against and withdrawing the support for the P3 project.”
With comments and interjections made by citizens in the city hall, Jones added, “This motion is not saying that the City of Statesville is in favor or against a public-private partnership. This motion is in support of what has been in plan and in process for years.”
“If we vote against it, we will possibly increase our general fund tax rate by at least 3%,” shared Jones. “That negatively affects the citizens of Statesville.”
Chamber member Doris Allison raised her concerns about the financial impacts of toll roads for citizens of Statesville. “What will the residents, the people of Statesville, the people that’s there, what are they losing? It’s like if you do it, you’re wrong. If you don’t, you’re wrong,” said Allison. “But that’s my reason why I cannot afford to say because I am looking at what is happening right now.”
Ron Smith clarifies that the city receives about $1 million in funding from the Powell Bill to predominantly pave streets in Statesville. “Losing any money from the Powell funding would be a terrible blow to the city because we would have to augment that in other ways,” said Smith. “So any hole that we dig ourselves into is just going to make it harder and harder to get the streets repeated in the city of Statesville.”
To view the City Council meeting along with the agenda, visit this website here.
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