The Charlotte, N.C. City Council approved a $16.3-million bid from Blythe Construction Inc. to construct a pedestrian bridge across Interstate 277 near Uptown Charlotte, a key connection for the Charlotte Rail Trail that’s been in the works for more than 20 years. 

Renderings show 40-ft-tall double arches on either side 280-ft length of the bridge that connects more than 40 miles of bikeways into Charlotte’s center city. The freestanding bridge will be constructed adjacent to Charlotte’s LYNX Blue Line rail bridge between South Boulevard and South College Street. 

Funded by a mix of city, county, North Carolina Dept. of Transportation and private contributions including from U.S. Bank, work will include a 16-ft-wide bicycle and pedestrian concrete path, retaining walls and grading, per the city council’s Jan. 13 agenda. The contract is still subject to approval by the state DOT. 

Set for second-quarter 2028 completion, plans for the bridge, which will connect Charlotte’s South End and Uptown neighborhoods, were included as a key component in the city’s South End Vision Plan adopted by the city council in 2018, according to Charlotte Rail Trail. 

The council voted in 2019 to authorize a $1.2-million bridge contract to Thomas & Hutton Engineering, a year after it authorized finding for the then $11-million project. But the pedestrian bridge alongside the LYNX Blue Line dates to the early 2000s, per the council agenda for that funding approval, which says the city removed the pedestrian bridge from a 2004 LYNX project as a cost-saving measure. 

In 2018, 500,000 people, an average of 2,000 each day, used Charlotte’s Rail Trail, a 3.5-mile pedestrian trail that connects multiple Charlotte neighborhoods to the city’s Uptown core. It ends abruptly near I-277, where the pedestrian bridge is planned, before starting again closer to Uptown. 

At a  2018 meeting, Dan Gallagher, then deputy director for the Charlotte Dept. of Transportation, explained that a pedestrian connection across I-277 has been missing since 2006, when the LYNX Blue Line construction was completed. He urged the council at that time to move forward with the project, which he said was part of a larger plan to create a bicycle and pedestrian highway network throughout the city.