Action NC

Sign up to get involved with Action NC and help stop the proposed I-77 toll lane expansion: https://secure.ngpvan.com/TTRHLZP6-UqQyCwere70ag2

Thank you to Councilwoman Renee Johnson for asking the question on Mayors Equity Initiative & showing how this I-77 Toll CRBA will be just as murky.

Not only is the Mayor’s Racial Equity Initiative a good line of questioning because we want to know how it’s being spent & how much is left, but also it’s an example of a public private partnership controlled by a private foundation & shows how even the city can’t get transparency.

Just imagine trying to get transparency from a public private partnership between the state & a toll operator around a CBA where the benefits mostly come from the toll operator?

The I‑77 toll lane “community benefits” pitch reads like sharecropping with asphalt: the community does all the heavy lifting, provides the land, the tax base, and the political cover, and then the private operator strolls in to harvest the revenue like they personally tilled the soil.

You get the privilege of buying access to your own road at toll prices that make the old company store look like a charity. When you ask why nothing ever comes back to the neighborhoods, the government shrugs and blames “revenue projections,” (the modern day version of a drought ) as if the ridership, not the contract, is the problem.

Then they explain to you why they can’t tell the toll operator how to run their road, just like sharecroppers were told they couldn’t tell the landowner how to run his farm. But sure, this time the landowner (toll operator) is definitely going to build you a grocery store out of the goodness of his heart. Because nothing says equity like hoping the people who control the land, the crop, the store, the prices, and the rules suddenly decide to share the harvest.

Overflow room only! Charlotte is standing and speaking out today! 📢

5:00 PM, 600 E 4th St Charlotte
Make your voice heard! 🎤

🚨 Ahead of Charlotte City Council’s return and Monday’s Transportation Committee meeting at 5:00 PM, Action NC has a clear message:

Stay strong. Do not walk back the decision to rescind support for I-77 tolls.

We will work with the community’s preferred path on this fight, as long as that path is not concession. But we believe the practical reality is this: every road leads to court. The only question is whether Charlotte arrives with a plan and leverage, or later with higher costs and fewer options.

Waiting does not reduce risk. It usually increases legal cost, cedes control of the timeline, and lets the other side define the terms first, especially around the $60 million sunk-cost question.

North Carolina has seen this movie before. The I-77 North toll dispute did not resolve through pressure or promises. It required litigation. NCDOT’s track record across the state shows the same pattern: when accountability is delayed, communities end up in court over tolling authority, property rights (Map Act), environmental impacts (Complete 540), and civil-rights harms.

The legacy of Julius Chambers and James Ferguson reminds us that when the goal is enforceable clarity, the proper forum is court, and delay simply shifts leverage away from the city.

If court is coming, Charlotte should control the timing.

It’s time to live up to the Hornets’ nest we claim. Show up. Fight smart. Do not let someone else write the terms for our city.

I-77 toll lanes will not be tolerated.

The Hornets will not concede.
See you Monday.

Medicaid and Medicare have shown us that our government can make health care more affordable for over 61 years.

We need to build on that progress. Not tear it down.

That means protecting coverage and taking on the corporate price gouging driving up the cost of care.