NCDOT speeds planned widening of congested Charlotte-area highway, official says

State highway officials have accelerated the planned start of widening notoriously congested N.C. 150 in the Lake Norman area, Mooresville town commissioner Tommy DeWeese said Friday.

A contractor could be hired in October to start work on the Mooresville leg of the long-awaited $269.5 million expansion in October, DeWeese announced on Nextdoor.

NCDOT currently lists the start date as 2025 on its N.C. 150 online project page and 2029 as the start of the Catawba County leg. It was unknown Saturday if the Catawba County stretch will start sooner, too .

The project, which is fully funded, will widen 15 miles of two-lane N.C. 150 from just west of the U.S. 21/N.C. 150 interchange in Mooresville to N.C. 16 Bypass in Catawba County. Part of the stretch includes the old two-lane bridge over the lake.

Multiple lanes will be added, and traffic improvements will be made to the I-77/N.C. 150 exit 36 interchange.

Timetable upped to October

Advertisements for bids on the project are scheduled to be published for a month beginning Sept. 17, with construction to start in October, right after a contractor is chosen, DeWeese said.

FERC permit, utilities

In other N.C. 150 project updates Friday, DeWeese told residents that NCDOT continues working with utility owners to move utilities for the expansion.

The contract will have a ”delayed availability” clause temporarily barring N.C. 150 expansion work within a boundary governed by the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission.

The commission regulates Duke Energy’s power plants on Catawba River lakes, including the coal-powered Marshall Steam Station off N.C. 150 on Lake Norman, in the Catawba County community of Terrell.

The Duke FERC permit allowing for N.C. 150 expansion work in the boundary “will not be acquired until summer of 2025,” DeWeese said on Nextdoor. “All other work can commence.”

NCDOT will include a public information officer position in the contract to answer questions and provide updates to residents, elected officials and news outlets.

Residents have waited decades

Residents have pushed for N.C. 150 relief for decades.

In the early 1990s , a member of the North Carolina Board of Transportation persuaded fellow board members to expand N.C. 150 beginning in the rural Gaston County city of Cherryville, instead of the already congested exit 36 in Mooresville, The Charlotte Observer reported at the time.

The board member was an executive with the Carolina Freight trucking company who wanted quicker access to I-85 in Gastonia for his fleet. Carolina Freight was among the largest trucking companies in the U.S. It was bought out in the mid-1990s.