A Canceller‐Pays Solution to America’s Permitting Cancellation Problem

The I-77 South Express Lanes project in Charlotte is un-cancelled, for now, after spending the summer as a “dead” infrastructure project. The North Carolina Department of Transportation (NCDOT) will likely resume its procurement for the public-private partnership later this year. Before everyone moves on, however, it is worth stepping back and examining why this project was cancelled in the first place, and the legislation that brought it back from the dead. There may be lessons on ways to fix America’s dysfunctional infrastructure politics.

Let’s start with what was not unique about the I-77 South project cancellation and un-cancellation, because many of the events follow a well-trod pattern in U.S. infrastructure development. 

First, after years of planning, evaluation and public consultation, the project was approved, including by the very same organization that would later cancel and un-cancel it, the Charlotte Regional Transportation Planning Organization (CRTPO). Way back in October 2024, the board of that organization voted to approve the I-77 South P3, after several years of studies. NCDOT said at the time that CRTPO couldn’t withdraw its support once the state started its procurement.

Second, once approved by CRTPO, the state moved forward and invested millions of additional dollars in public consultation, permitting, and procurement.

Third, after bidders were shortlisted and the state was nearing a request for proposals, a concentrated opposition movement emerged to oppose the project, after the state’s public consultation was completed.

Fourth, some local politicians abruptly reversed course and opposed the project, culminating in its cancellation by the CRTPO board in May (even though NCDOT said this couldn’t happen).

Fifth, the project was un-cancelled by the CRTPO board but only after a renewed campaign by the state promising hundreds of millions of dollars of local investments, including a $300 million community benefits agreement that the state signed with Charlotte.

Some version of the sequence of events described above is arguably table stakes for developing a large infrastructure project in the United States. The sequence varies, of course. Some projects are outright cancelled, while others are just delayed. In some cases the community benefit agreements or other mitigations assuage the stakeholders threatening to block or delay the project. In this case the obstruction came from a Metropolitan Planning Organization (MPO), but there are many institutions with the power to block any given project, and many federal or state laws through which stakeholders can threaten to intervene in the development process. Every project is unique, but a broad version of this investment -> stakeholder intervention -> mitigation -> delay or cancellation process is the political economy of American public works.

What makes the I-77 South project so unique is what happened after it was cancelled by CRTPO. The state legislature passed a law that would require the regional towns and cities that voted to cancel the project to actually pay for the costs of their actions, and reimburse the state for the millions of dollars it spent planning and procuring the project. NCDOT was happy to tabulate all of those expenditures, amounting to nearly $69.6 million. The legislation gave municipalities until early October to reconsider their decisions, and only those voting against the project would be required to pay its predevelopment costs. CRTPO scheduled another board vote on the project in late September.