Reconnecting the West End

Colorful square logo with text that says reconnecting the west end

The U.S. Department of Transportation’s Reconnecting Communities Pilot (RCP) program awarded the City of Charlotte a $1M planning grant to study the existing interchanges at Interstate 77 (I-77) and West 5th Street / West Trade Street. This planning study will assess barriers to access, including safe and equitable mobility choices, and connectivity to Charlotte’s center city – “Uptown” – while balancing the goals of the community and the needs of the facility.

Get Involved – Engagement Opportunities

We need to hear from you! There will be a variety of opportunities for public engagement over the next 12 months.

The first such opportunity will be a community design charrette on March 25-26, 2025. Community members came to talk to the project team, see design work in progress, and gave ideas for Reconnecting the West End. Five design alternatives were developed with the community for the potential plan for the I-77 West End Interchange.

Check back for future engagement opportunities and subscribe below to stay connected.

Community Survey

Join us in helping to Reconnect the West End! Your input is essential to creating a plan for the I-77 West End Interchange that reflects that values of the community. THe feedback from this survey will inform the outcomes and recommendations of the Reconnecting the West End project. This survey will take approximately 5-10 minutes to complete.

Study Area

Charlotte’s West End is a historic Black community anchored by Johnson C. Smith University (JCSU), a Historically Black University with significant ties to the Civil Rights Movement of the 1960s. A vibrant community with a legacy of culture, the West End has a history of entrepreneurship and small business within the Black community. Developed in the late 1800s, the Five Points of the Historic West End includes four distinct neighborhoods: Biddleville, Seversville, Smallwood, and Wesley Heights. The study will focus primarily on the “West End Interchange” shown below, but will consider the impacts of a proposed project on the larger “Planning Area.”

image of a map of the study area with description below

Study Area – The West End Interchange (I-77 / West Trade St. / West 5th St.)

Project Goals

  1. Reconnect: Retrofit or mitigate I-77 facility to reconnect the West End to Uptown.
  2. Reprioritize: Meet demand while also prioritizing the safe and comfortable movement of people.
  3. Reclaim: Reclaim land from the interchange area to better connect the West End to adjacent communities.
  4. Recalibrate: Understand future demand and design currently under evaluation through I-77 South Express Lanes project.
  5. Redevelop: Develop plans & policies to support mixed-income, mixed-use development.
  6. Redesign: Deliver 10% engineering plans for a West End interchange that accomplishes the above.

Project Partners

  • City of Charlotte
  • NCDOT
  • Community Partners (JCSU, Inlivian, Historic West End Partners, Five Points Community Collaborative, Charlotte Center City Partners, and others)
  • Project Funders (USDOT, Knight Foundation, Fifth Third Bank / LISC, and Wells Fargo)

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