Interstate 73 (I-73): North Carolina Route, Planned Extensions and Safety Data

How long is I-73?

FHWA's Route Log credits I-73 with 121.52 miles, every one of them in North Carolina. Interstate Guide prints that number in its state table, taken from the December 31, 2025 Route Log, but puts 99.43 miles at the top of its own page. Wikipedia's state table says 101.1 miles, and the first paragraph of its article says 93.5.

Overlaps can't close a gap of about 20 miles. The Route Log notes 25.75 miles that I-73 shares with I-74 and 3.56 miles shared with I-840, but those miles carry I-73 shields and belong in any end-to-end measurement. Wikipedia cites the same 121.52 figure to the Route Log for the end of 2017, years before the Rockingham Bypass added new miles at the south end in 2025, so the federal total did not grow when the road did. Neither Interstate Guide nor Wikipedia says where the difference comes from.

Where I-73 starts and ends

The southern end is the interchange with I-74, US 74 and US 74 Business northwest of Rockingham in Richmond County. From there the Rockingham Bypass, opened to traffic on January 28, 2025, carries I-73 and I-74 north to US 220 near Ellerbe. The northern end is Exit 123 at NC 68 near Stokesdale, where the I-73 shields stop and US 220 keeps going toward the Virginia line.

In between, I-73 runs with I-74 and US 220 through Montgomery County, squeezed between the county's eastern border and Uwharrie National Forest, and passes just west of Asheboro in Randolph County. I-74 peels off at Randleman toward High Point and Winston-Salem. I-73 then crosses Randleman Lake into Guilford County, takes the Greensboro Urban Loop with US 421, and leaves the loop at Bryan Boulevard to swing past Piedmont Triad International Airport. It rejoins US 220 near the Haw River for the final 4 miles to NC 68. Wikipedia also counts Rockingham County, north of Guilford, among the five counties on the route.

Interstate junctions along I-73

Read from south to north, the list is short. I-74 appears at the Randleman split, though the two routes also meet at the southern end, where their shared run begins. I-85 and I-40 follow in Greensboro, the second on the Urban Loop, where US 421 leaves I-73 to follow I-40. I-840 is a three-digit route and does not appear here, even though I-73 carries it along the Urban Loop from I-40 to Bryan Boulevard.

Fatal crashes on I-73

FARS counts 29 deaths in 28 fatal crashes on I-73 from 2020 to 2024, close to 6 a year. That comes to 4.6 deaths per 100 route miles a year, less than half the Interstate figure of 9.5. Among the 56 Interstates of 100 miles or more, I-73 ranks 46th, and only ten have a lower rate.

The rate here uses 125.08 miles: the 121.52-mile Route Log row plus the 3.56 miles the log lists as shared with I-840, which has no row of its own in the main-route table. The 25.75 miles shared with I-74 are already inside I-73's row, so they are not added a second time. With the whole route in one state, the North Carolina rate and the route rate are the same number.

Randolph County had 13 of the deaths, Guilford County 9 and Montgomery County 7, which covers all 29; Richmond County at the southern end had none. Deaths held between 5 and 6 a year from 2020 to 2023 and reached 7 in 2024. The count ends before the Rockingham Bypass opened in January 2025.

Counties with the most I-73 crash deaths

Bridges on I-73

The 2025 National Bridge Inventory lists 78 bridges carrying the I-73 main line. None of them rate Poor; 52 are Good and 26 Fair. The median one was built in 2007, which fits a road whose freeway sections kept opening from the late 1990s through 2025.

A structure at the Greensboro airport crosses I-73 instead of carrying it, so it is not among the 78. Interstate Guide notes that the link from Bryan Boulevard to US 220 was built alongside a taxiway bridge that takes Piedmont Triad International Airport traffic over the new freeway.

Tolls on I-73

FHWA's toll inventory for January 1, 2023 has no I-73 entry, and the open North Carolina road charges nothing from Rockingham to Stokesdale. South Carolina has considered tolls for its future section: bills to build I-73 as a toll highway were introduced in January 2006, and FHWA approved the state's tolling proposal on August 10, 2007.

Where I-73 came from, and what is still on paper

The road started as a West Virginia idea. K.A. Ammar, a Bluefield businessman who had pushed since 1979 to widen a dangerous two-lane stretch of US 52 used by coal trucks, worked with Bluefield State College professor John Sage on a proposal in 1989 for an I-73 from Detroit to Charleston, South Carolina. ISTEA, the 1991 surface transportation law, made it High Priority Corridor 5, the I-73/74 North-South Corridor.

North Carolina's alignment changed before anything was signed. A route through High Point and Winston-Salem was approved in May 1993, but a group of business leaders from both sides of the Virginia line wanted a Roanoke to Greensboro road. In 1995 Senator Lauch Faircloth asked Senator John Warner to call the Winston-Salem road I-74, which cleared the way for I-73 to go through Greensboro. The National Highway System Designation Act that year added a Michigan branch to Sault Ste. Marie, and AASHTO approved I-73 and I-74 south of I-81 in Virginia in a mail ballot completed July 25, 1996.

Wikipedia dates the first I-73 section on US 220 to May 1997; Interstate Guide says the first signed stretch ran 31.5 miles from south of Candor to US 64 in Asheboro. The southwestern Greensboro Urban Loop took I-73 shields in February 2008, a month after a 17-mile extension from Candor to Ellerbe was finished. After the Asheboro freeway was brought up to standard in October 2012, crews replaced Future I-73 signs along about 70 miles, finishing in December 2013. The section from NC 68 near the airport to US 220 near the Haw River opened in May and July 2017, the NC 68 interchange at the north end was done that December, and the Rockingham Bypass extended the route south in January 2025 under a $146.1 million contract for 7.2 miles of freeway.

South Carolina's section is planned and permitted but not built. SCDOT's route begins where SC 22 meets US 17 near Briarcliffe Acres, follows SC 22 past Conway, then follows new road to SC 917, crosses the Little Pee Dee River on an upgraded SC 917, and continues on new freeway past Mullins and Latta to I-95 near SC 38, continuing toward Bennettsville and the North Carolina line. SCDOT also plans and pays for the short piece inside North Carolina up to US 74 and NC 38. The Army Corps of Engineers issued the permit in June 2017. In February 2026, SCDOT said it had bought 99 percent of the right-of-way between I-95 and US 501 and 95 percent between US 501 and the Little Pee Dee, with purchases still under way from the river to SC 22. Governor Henry McMaster's 2024 executive budget had no money for construction, while Horry County's RIDE IV program, approved in November 2024, still plans work on the county's part. In March 2026 the General Assembly passed a resolution asking that the future road be named the President Donald J. Trump Highway.

North of Stokesdale, about 18 miles of US 220 to the Virginia line are planned for I-73 but not fully funded. NCDOT's first contract on the corridor, an $18 million rebuild of the US 311 and NC 135 interchange near Mayodan, is due for completion in fall 2028. Virginia completed an environmental study in 2005 for a route along US 220 through Martinsville to Roanoke, and FHWA approved it in April 2007. In September 2024, though, the Commonwealth Transportation Board voted to rescind its 2001 location approval after VDOT reported that the earmarked federal money had been repurposed, so any revival would restart the study and public comment process. Michigan's transportation department dropped its I-73 study in 2001, and the US 52 work in West Virginia is not being built to Interstate standards.

I-73 traffic and road conditions

Every open mile of I-73 lies in North Carolina, so one state site covers the whole road from Rockingham to Stokesdale. Look there for wrecks, lane closures and work zones before a trip; the crash figures above stop at 2024.

I-73 questions