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jolooote's avatar
jolooote
Explorer
Sep 27, 2016

Charlotte, N.Carolina thru or around?

We will be traveling south to north on I-77 thru Charlotte about Oct.7 in a 25' MoHO. Should I go thru the center or take the west side 485 By-Pass?:h
  • Go straight through, in my opinion. Do this several times a year. I77 is bad north of Charlotte to Statesville. Anymore the bypasses are just as bad as heading straight through. Most important is time of day. I try to avoid morning and afternoon rush times (6-9 and 4-6) and Saturday's (10-2).
  • Horsedoc wrote:
    You will likely have few if any problems is you go through on 77. We usually have problems on northbound just south of Statesville near the lake. Many of the NASCAR types live on the lake and there is a lot of traffic most any time of the day, including early morning in the southbound lanes heading toward CHarlotte.
    If you happen to be coming north on I-85 I suggest cutting north on US 321 at Gastonia and up to I-40 then up to Statesville and I-77. This will put you above the lake and most of Statesville


    I work in Iredell county and travel this section of I-77 almost daily and yes it can be bad. However, I personally wouldn't recommend detouring miles out of the way for it. It only backs up through the Huntersville, roughly 10 miles from 485 and after that flows pretty good (usually). Depending on time of day it quite likely won't be backed up at all.
    If it's not, and you're running normal speed limit, the right lane is grooved very badly from construction and will make for a 10 and 2 stressful drive, stay in the left lane.
  • You will likely have few if any problems is you go through on 77. We usually have problems on northbound just south of Statesville near the lake. Many of the NASCAR types live on the lake and there is a lot of traffic most any time of the day, including early morning in the southbound lanes heading toward CHarlotte.
    If you happen to be coming north on I-85 I suggest cutting north on US 321 at Gastonia and up to I-40 then up to Statesville and I-77. This will put you above the lake and most of Statesville
  • We normally just run 77 right down the heart of Charlotte . .. That is, depending on the time of day... But then again, even 485 gets jammed during rush hour...
  • Depends on time of day. If you avoid rush hours then going straight thru on 77 is not much of an issue. Done it lots of times. If you can't avoid rush times, then take the bypass.
  • We always take the 485 bypass to avoid any traffic issues now. The few extra miles are usually more than made by the time savings.