Charlotte Douglas International Airport has opened five of the lower-level lanes of its new US$50m roadway project.
The Elevated Roadway and Curb Front project is being undertaken to cater for increasing passenger numbers and to ease congestion and improve the flow of traffic arriving and departing the airport.
Of the five new lower level lanes, two will be dedicated to drop-off and pickup. The three other lanes will be for traffic throughput. The current public lower-level roadway will close in preparation for the airport’s Terminal Lobby Expansion project. In April, the airport opened five new upper-level lanes (three for traffic throughput and two drop-off/pickup lanes).
The US$50m roadway project is part of Destination CLT, a US$2.5 to US$3.1bn capital investment program that includes concourse renovations and expansion of the airport’s roadways, curb front, airfield and terminal. Over the past 20 years, CLT has experienced tremendous growth, increasing from 23 million passengers in 1998 to more than 46 million passengers in 2018. As the sixth-busiest airport in the USA and seventh worldwide, Destination CLT is designed to meet growth demand through 2035.
The last section of the Elevated Roadway and Curb Front project that CLT will open are the three upper-level lanes near the terminal. Those lanes are complete, but will be used to store equipment for the Terminal Lobby Expansion. Construction begins in December on the US$600m project. Once the lobby expansion is complete in four to five years, the lanes will be used by commercial vehicles.
