Charlotte City Council Blind To Taxpayer Frustration

In the 1990's when the City of Charlotte promoted the 2020 transportation plan, everything looked good on paper.

The Providence Road, Johnston Road and South Tryon Corridors were heading towards  gridlock and everyone knew it. 485 was new and everyone thought this is nirvana but planner knew the joy would be short lived. 

Today 485 spends much of the day at a crawl. But as with the never ending I-77 nightmare Charlotte City Council is totally impotent to fix the problems. 

The South County Connector plan was developed in late 1999 as the answer but it is a failure because someone didn't tell the developer of Lantower Waverly not to put an apartment tower in the middle of Ardrey Kell Road. 

Right now you are asking what is the "South County Connector"? 

The once proposed road has gone by many names, SMCC, Southern Connector and so on. 

But at one time the idea behind the limited access parkway style road was to allow traffic to flow along the southern end of Mecklenburg County unimpeded. 

Studies had shown the 485 traffic would quickly become unmanageable as local residents known as "two mile users" or hop on hop off traffic, would use 485 to move from one main artery to another which would substantially add to the traffic volume and because of the short use increases the "merge delay" thereby hampering the flow of a normal interstate highway.  

The section from Providence to Tom Short was required of developers of Providence Country Club prior to zoning approval in the early 90's. 

The idea was to connect 521 to 74 via a low speed two lane parkway with limited neighborhood access and retail development. In the beginning it was a good idea. 

Except the goal posts kept moving. Today Ardery Kell is a crazy mix of highway types curb and gutter styles and sight distances. It is void of city street lights and barely navigable at Marvin Road thanks to a retail development built on the sidewalk. The road is burdened by Ardery Kell High School where a school zone speed limit is in effect 6 hours each day. Now we are adding a Junior High to add to the madness.

Which translates in to AK having somewhat limited use compared to nearby Pineville - Matthews Road. 

But the final "coup de gras" took place at Waverly where the developer Childress Klein apparently didn't get the memo. 

Ardrey Kell today dead ends at a roundabout just after crossing Providence Road

Childress Klein decided a "grand round-a-bout" would be the perfect landscape addition to their Lantower Project.

Meanwhile Plute built as directed their section of Ardery Kell and with the help of NCDOT added another "grand round-a-bout" at Tilly Morris. The only trouble is the two roads don't connect.

Plute built Ardrey Kell Road to Tilly Morris. 

The State of North Carolina completed this elaborate roundabout in 2023.

Oops?

This is what happens when democrats run city/county govco. 

But back in 2016 the South County Connector project was the talk of Charlotte From The Charlotte Business Journal:

PulteGroup Inc. (NYSE: PHM) has closed on at least a part of its purchase to develop single-family homes on Tilley Morris Road. 

The homebuilder recently acquired 38.5 acres from Marsh Realty Corp. for $4.3 million, according to the Mecklenburg County property deed. The transaction closed July 15. Documents — including a grading permit application and pre-construction materials — filed with the City of Charlotte indicate Pulte seeks to build up to 100 single-family homes in a development called Castleford, previously called Kellmoor, on the acquired site. 

A Pulte spokeswoman confirmed its plans for the site on Friday. The project is one of several announced or underway along the Interstate 485 interchange near Providence Road. 

Castleford is adjacent to Crescent Communities’ Providence Farm project, expected to break ground soon. That development will add 404 residential units, an 80-unit for-sale community with single-family homes and townhouses, up to 30,000 square feet of retail, and a 180-room hotel. 

Pulte’s Castleford project is anticipated to help advance the extension of Ardrey Kell Road to Tilley Morris Road and add a roundabout, methods aimed to alleviate traffic volume as a result of the area’s growth. Ardrey Kell runs through Waverly, a 90-acre mixed-use development by Childress Klein Properties and Crosland Southeast under construction off Providence Road. 

Cedar's Take:

The problem is road construction contingent on development vs development contingent on road construction. 

Well managed cities have zoning that is permanent and they build roads to accommodate future development. Charlotte's endless rezoning is insane.

See Dallas and Denver as examples of the right way to deal with zoning and road construction.

Yes it costs money to build 4 lane limited access roads to no where and wait for developers to build projects to help recover the costs but the end result is worth the wait.

By using developers to complete highway and street infrastructure projects taxpayers are at the mercy of developers and the economic whims of the housing and retail markets. It also gives developers the upper hand in forcing re-zoning. Which is what killed East Charlotte and Steele Creek. Both are now over run with crime and apartments. Retail is all but dead in East Charlotte and Albemarle Road looks more like Wilkinson Blvd everyday.

In a worse case example of government incompetence you end up with Ardrey Kell at Waverly and the nightmare that is Providence Road at 485.