After 40 years of complaints by residents stuck in congestion, the N.C. Department of Transportation has awarded a $249 million contract to widen N.C. 150 at Lake Norman.
“Our community has long awaited these enhancements, and we are committed to work with NCDOT as they oversee the construction,” state Sen. Vickie Sawyer, R-Iredell, said in a statement Thursday.
Sawyer and Mooresville town commissioner Lisa Qualls announced the awarding of the contract to Charlotte-based Blythe Development. The NCDOT Board in Raleigh approved the contract at its meeting Thursday morning.
Sawyer called the widening of the two-lane former farm-to-market route critical to alleviating chronic backups and improving safety “along one of the region’s most heavily traveled corridors.”
N.C. 150 was backed up at Interstate 77 Mooresville exit 36 as long ago as the late 1980s, but a member of the State Transportation Board from rural Cherryville in Gaston County got work started there first, a Charlotte Observer investigation in the early 1990s revealed.
The board member was an executive with Carolina Freight, then one of the top trucking companies in America. Expanding the route starting near the company’s headquarters would more quickly move his trucks to Interstate 85 in Gastonia via U.S. 321 in Lincolnton, he told the Observer at the time.
Pleas by business leaders in Mooresville and nearby communities at the time failed to sway the board.
Two-county widening
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.
Widening is expected to begin with the Mooresville stretch in early 2025.
Qualls thanked NCDOT “for their dedication to this project, especially considering the recent challenges posed by Hurricane Helene.” Qualls also is chairperson of the Charlotte Regional Transportation Planning Organization, which recommends road projects to the state.
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