Avoiding Charlotte -- On Friday, my wife and I drove to Charlotte for the Southern Living Christmas Show and sat in heavy, slow traffic from around Mooresville all the way to the I-277 exit. We saw the same heavy traffic heading north on Saturday. I started looking for a way around that construction abomination for our trip to Florida on Tuesday. Saw U.S. 321 to the west running from I-40, but that route would have required a backtrack on I-85 to I-485 or travel on South Carolina back roads (after getting out of Gastonia) to hit I-77 further south. Then I saw NC 16, which ran from I-40 to I-485. A view on Google maps showed it to be mostly four-lane, so I took a chance. Interesting highway with the usual North Carolina "no rhyme or reason" construction. We got off at exit 133, Rock Barn Road, and took a short jaunt over to NC 16. Followed that south through a suburban area without much traffic until we go to the junction of Business NC 16. From there south there was construction to add two new lanes to the current two-lane highway. In the middle of the project, which was at various stages of grading, was a section with fresh asphalt lanes but a lot of work still to be done. From there, the grading went from almost ready to pave to working on the subgrade to rough grading to "well, that's where the road will be." The location of the paving really didn't make sense in the overall scheme -- but it's North Carolina. Once we got close to Killian Crossroads, the divided highway started and it was smooth sailing to I-485. That section of highway was interesting, left turns across traffic from side roads isn't permitted. One has to turn right, travel a short distance, then change direction via a dedicated U-turn crossover.
The end result was we kept moving at a good clip and didn't lose any time trying to get through/around Charlotte via I-77. NC 16 is a nice alternative.
Bruce in Blacksburg