The Black Political Caucus of Charlotte-Mecklenburg said at a news conference Monday that it will file a lawsuit in Mecklenburg County Superior Court seeking a temporary restraining order to halt the Interstate 77 toll lane expansion project.
Residents in historically Black neighborhoods say the highway widening will further divide their communities from uptown and increase noise pollution. The BPC says the North Carolina Department of Transportation hasn’t engaged with the community enough. One complaint is that the department released maps of the planned toll lanes in the fall of 2025 — only after it said it was too late to stop the project.
Raki McGregor, the chair of the BPC’s transportation committee, said the DOT has acted as a “dictatorship.”
McCrorey Heights neighborhood president Sean Langley said he also wants Democratic Gov. Josh Stein involved in the project.
“We want Gov. Stein’s input,” Langley said. “We want him to hear the voice of this community, of this chorus of neighborhoods that are all echoing the same thing.”
I-77 is one of the state’s most congested highways. The DOT wants to build two toll lanes in each direction from uptown to the South Carolina line. Toll lanes already extend north from uptown into Iredell County.
Supporters of the project — like the Charlotte Regional Business Alliance — have said the toll lanes are critical to keep the region moving, and to foster economic growth as the area's population continues to increase.
The lawsuit comes as the DOT and the staff of the Charlotte Regional Transportation Planning Organization have said it’s too late to pause or stop the project. The CRTPO's contract attorney, Mujeeb Shah-Khan, wrote a memo last week that said the organization’s board no longer has any influence over the project, and that it can’t order a pause.
Mecklenburg Commissioner and CRTPO member Leigh Altman dismissed Shah-Khan’s memo, noting that it did not include any legal citations to support his opinion.
“An attorney opinion without any quotations to authority is not an attorney opinion,” she said. “It’s a personal opinion.”
The Charlotte City Council is scheduled to discuss the toll lanes at its Monday retreat. At least nine council members have said they want to explore ways to pause the project.
