What goes around comes around

For more than a year leading up to last November’s transportation sales tax referendum, Matthews Mayor John Higdon felt discarded.

The plan unveiled in 2024 reduced the amount of money for rail transit, which meant the proposed Silver Line light rail wouldn’t reach his town. Higdon pleaded with leaders like Charlotte Mayor Vi Lyles and City Council member Ed Driggs to tweak the plan and at least bring the train closer to Matthews.

They weren’t interested.

At one point, Lyles publicly dismissed Matthews as not big enough to decide the referendum with only 30,000 residents. Driggs brushed off Higdon’s concerns by saying “no decisions had been made,” even though local leaders had already made critical decisions behind closed doors.

Higdon invited them to attend a summit about the plan. Neither showed up.

In the end, the sales tax increase passed 52% to 48%.

But Higdon did not forget.

On Wednesday, the board of the Charlotte Regional Transportation Planning Organization voted with a supermajority to rescind its support for the Interstate 77 toll lanes project. It was a stunning, even historic moment in a city where the business community never loses. It was also a stinging loss for Lyles and Driggs, who both supported the toll lanes.

The CRTPO vote Wednesday night hadn’t been on the agenda. It was only possible because of the dogged determination of Higdon, who badgered his colleagues into voting to rescind the project immediately before someone on the Charlotte City Council changed their mind. Charlotte has more than 40% of the weighted vote on the board.

“If one person (from Charlotte) changes tomorrow, we can’t vote,” Higdon said during the meeting. “Well, we can vote, but it will not be rescinded – ever.”

The fact that Higdon was opposed to toll lanes wasn’t particularly surprising. Many of his CRTPO colleagues felt the same way.

But he was the only one who felt so strongly about it that he decided to muscle through an immediate supermajority vote, instead of waiting to decide in two months with a simple majority yes-or-no vote, as the board chair wanted. Many other toll lane opponents would have waited to fight it out another day.

It’s hard not to draw a line between the Silver Line slights and Higdon driving a stake through I-77 toll lanes. In an interview, Higdon demurred, saying only: “I’ve raised concerns about toll lanes since they were first proposed here, particularly when they involve public‑private partnerships that charge high fees for express lane access while offering little meaningful relief from congestion.”

Higdon wasn’t the only one, perhaps, motivated after being slighted.

The CRTPO resolution was made possible by a May 11 vote prompted by Charlotte City Council member Renee Johnson. Similar to Higdon’s actions, a little more than a week later, she repeatedly pushed for her colleagues to take a clear, immediate vote on whether they supported the toll lanes or not.

She finally got her way, and her motion to rescind was approved, 6-5.

Just as Higdon felt slighted by Charlotte’s mayor, so did Johnson. Lyles unsuccessfully endorsed an opponent against her in the 2023 Democratic primary – the first time the mayor has ever done that. Johnson also has objected to how the city operates, arguing there should be more transparency and that decisions are made long before council members hold an open meeting.

Johnson would have been opposed to the toll lanes in 2026, regardless of her relationship with the mayor. But there is a difference between merely being against something and having the fire to actually kill it.

A little luck, too

Two votes to reverse course on a $3.2 billion project in nine days is not normal. It’s not the Charlotte Way, where the business community sets the agenda and elected officials follow.

And it took more than just Higdon and Johnson’s passion to get there. Toll lane opponents had a lot of luck.

• The toll lanes would probably be moving forward had Marjorie Molina not lost her City Council reelection bid to J.D. Mazuera Arias in September by 33 votes. Mazuera Arias voted against the toll lanes; Molina would have probably voted with the mayor to support them.
• When Johnson made her motion on May 11, Lyles could have shut the topic down. Council members had already approved a separate, milder I-77 motion, and the mayor could have used procedural rules to end the debate.

She did not.

It’s the mayor’s job as the presiding officer to run the meeting. As WFAE has reported earlier, Lyles has struggled to do that in recent months. She announced earlier this month she would resign June 30.

• Lyles had another chance to stop Johnson’s motion on May 11 with a veto. It’s a rarely used power that many people don’t realize Charlotte’s mayor holds. Did she not think to do so? Or chose not to do it?
• After Johnson’s successful motion against I-77 on May 11, Driggs grudgingly said he would abide by the council’s wishes and vote at CRTPO to rescind Charlotte’s I-77 support. 

But Driggs was on vacation this week and missed Wednesday’s CRTPO meeting. City Council member James Mitchell represented the city instead.

During the Wednesday meeting, CRTPO Board Chair Brad Richardson pushed to delay the I-77 vote until July.

If Driggs had been there, would he have supported that? That could have given toll lane supporters more time to convince the City Council to reverse course and back the toll lanes.

In the end, it was a moot point, with Driggs out of town.

Another piece of luck for opponents.

CRBA: So you’re saying there’s a chance?

The Charlotte Regional Business Alliance is apparently not giving up. On Thursday, the group said the CRTPO vote was “deeply disappointing – and shortsighted as the full consequences of the decision are not understood. Coming on the heels of Charlotte City Council’s narrow six-to-five vote earlier this month, two regional bodies have turned their backs on a project that they have been planning for two decades, backed by data, and critical to the economic future of this region.”

The CRBA then held out hope that all was not lost. It is hanging its hopes on the CRTPO board’s 2024 resolution that supported the toll lanes. It believes that the decision is irreversible.

“While NCDOT retains the authority to move this project forward, political opposition of this magnitude puts the June RFP release, and with it, $700 million in state investment, in real jeopardy. If that RFP does not go out, this project does not get built,” the CRBA said.

But it appears the DOT is hanging it up. Its statement after the vote said: “As we have discussed with City Council and CRTPO delegates, this vote means the loss (emphasis added) of $700M in critical transportation funding designed to address congestion, crash rates and community-driven priorities for the Charlotte region.”

What next?

The CRTPO vote means the $700 million set aside for I-77 will be spent elsewhere. But it doesn’t mean Charlotte can’t get that $700 million in the future. It also might get more.

The board should direct the DOT to come up with alternatives for the highway, including non-tolled options.

Board members should study what the DOT did in Gaston County, where it’s widening 10 miles of I-85 from three lanes in each direction to four lanes. The state broke the project into three segments so it could access state money three times. It won’t be built with toll lanes.