Twenty years ago, after Beau Memory’s car was rear-ended on U.S. Highway 74, a sympathetic police officer told him not to worry, a Monroe bypass would soon relieve some of the bumper-to-bumper traffic on the busy highway.
By Ken Elkins – Senior Staff Writer, Charlotte Business Journal – Nov. 27 2018
Today, Memory is executive director of the N.C. Turnpike Authority speaking at the opening of the Monroe Express, the Charlotte region’s first toll road. He told the story to illustrate how long Union County residents and others have waited for the $731 million road bypassing the commercial route through Monroe.
About 150 state officials and local residents attended the ceremony to open the Monroe Expressway Tuesday morning and many had stories and remembrances about waiting for the road to be built.
“This project was a long, long time in development,” says N.C. Transportation Secretary Jim Trogdon. The toll road should cut the drive from Marshville to Charlotte by up to 20 minutes by bypassing 27 major intersections on U.S. 74, most of which have stoplights, Trogdon says.
“The illusive dream has become a reality,” says Pat Kahle, president of the Union County Chamber of Commerce.
Chris Platé, executive director of Monroe-Union Economic Development, says the expressway will allow Monroe to “reclaim U.S. 74,” which locals call Roosevelt Boulevard.
“It’s about time, right?” Platé says. He has said that locals now avoid driving on Roosevelt Boulevard because it’s so crowded with cars, 18-wheelers and commercial traffic.
By moving some of that through traffic to the toll road, U.S. 74 will once again operate as a commercial corridor for shoppers and other local traffic, Platé says. He believes the bypass also will open up more of eastern Union County to development to ease the imbalance between residential, commercial and industrial properties.
The drive along 20 miles of Monroe Expressway is mostly a rural experience through Union County’s undeveloped eastern side.
But really is it the “crown jewel of the Charlotte region” as Jim Walker, a member of the Turnpike Authority board, says? The ceremony showed the Monroe Expressway is very important to Monroe and Union County.
A dozen or so kids from Marshville Elementary School led the group in the Pledge of Allegiance at the event. Vets from the Indian Trail Veterans of Foreign Wars presented the colors to start off the morning ceremony. That was preceded by a few tunes from the Wingate University Music Department.
Rhett Brown, president of Wingate, says the university has bought 100 acres near the expressway, convinced that enrollment will grow even more quickly as prospective students have easier access to the campus.
On the east end of the Monroe Expressway, some believe it will bring additional development outside of Union County. John Marek, executive director of the Anson Economic Development Partnership, is planning a motorcade to lunch in Charlotte to demonstrate how the Monroe Bypass will speed the trip to the Queen City.
“We want to show that Anson County is less than an hour away,” he explains.
