This is my first post as a new member, so I'll jump right in.
I'm old enough to remember when I-40 was gerrymandered by the General Assembly to proceed from Wilmington to Raleigh to Asheville instead of from Wilmington to Charlotte to Asheville. In the years since, US 74 has become increasingly clogged with traffic on a substandard roadbed that meanders through Monroe, Wadesboro and other towns, while the hoped for growth that I-40 was theoretically going to generate in those economically depressed counties between Raleigh and Wilmington largely failed to materialize.
Now, US 220, which runs through NC from roughly Greensboro to Rockingham, has been reflagged as I-73/74. At Rockingham, one of the proposed highways heads over the border into eastern South Carolina and the other heads eastward at a 90 degree angle along US 74, ending in Brunswick County. Is there any organized effort to authorize an Interstate spur, similar to I-385 in South Carolina, between Charlotte and Rockingham? I-385 provides an interstate-quality connection from I-26 in Columbia to I-85 in Greenville and would appear to level the playing field for Spartanburg and Greenville.
I am aware of the US 74 connector proposals involving US 601 and I-485 through southern Mecklenburg and eastern Union counties. I'm talking about something much more comprehensive and arguably, something much more essential to the economic well-being of greater Charlotte. Where is our congressional delegation on this one?