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Charlotte Airport To Open Five Lower Level Terminal Traffic Lanes To Public

Charlotte Douglas International Airport
Five lower lanes of Charlotte's airport open to the public Thursday at 11 p.m., causing a new traffic shift

Five lower level lanes of the elevated roadway and terminal curb front at Charlotte Douglas International Airport will open at 11 p.m. Thursday, the airport announced.

Two of the five lanes will be designated for drop-off and pickup. The other three lanes are for through traffic.

Private and commercial vehicles (shuttles and buses) will share the five public lanes for a week. Commercial vehicles will shift to three new lower level lanes Oct. 31 at 5 a.m., when the current lower level roadway will close in preparation for the terminal lobby expansion project.

From Oct. 25 until Oct. 31, pickup for ride-share services such as Uber and Lyft will be in the upper level. It will relocate to the lower level of Zone 4 of public lanes at 5 a.m. Oct. 31.

The $50 million roadway project construction is the third phase of Destination CLT, a $2.5-3.1 billion capital investment program that includes concourse renovations and expansion of the airport’s roadways, curb front, airfield and terminal.

The final phase, in which the remaining three upper level lanes will open to commercial vehicles upon completion of the terminal lobby expansion project, is slated to be complete in 4-5 years. Construction on that $600 million project is scheduled to begin in December.

In April, Charlotte Douglas Airport opened five new upper level lanes – three for through traffic and two for drop-off and pickup.

Jodie Valade has been a Digital News and Engagement Editor for WFAE since 2019. Since moving to Charlotte in 2015, she has worked as a digital content producer for NASCAR.com and a freelance writer for publications ranging from Charlotte magazine to The Athletic to The Washington Post and New York Times. Before that, Jodie was an award-winning sports features and enterprise reporter at The Plain Dealer in Cleveland, Ohio. She also worked at The Dallas Morning News covering the Dallas Mavericks — where she became Mark Cuban's lifelong email pen pal — and at The Kansas City Star. She has a Bachelor of Science in Journalism from Northwestern University and a Master of Education from John Carroll University. She is originally from Rochester Hills, Michigan.