It travels 93.5 miles (150.5 km), from south of Ellerbe, North Carolina to northeast of Stokesdale, providing a freeway connection to Greensboro and Asheboro.

Other than a short 9.5 mi (15.3 km) segment near the Piedmont Triad International Airport west of Greensboro, the interstate runs concurrently with at least one other route.

[3][4][5][6][7] I-73 was planned to be a much longer corridor, defined by various federal laws to run from Myrtle Beach, South Carolina, to Sault Ste.

However, once active projects are completed, it will only run from Myrtle Beach to the North Carolina-Virginia state line along U.S. Route 220.

[10] It then proceeds four miles (6.4 km) further north along a newly widened stretch of US 220 to another interchange with NC 68 which was completed in December 2017 but not signed as I-73 until March 2018.

Ammar, a businessman from Bluefield, West Virginia, started the Bluefield-to-Huntington Highway Association in order to widen US 52, a very dangerous two-lane road used to transport coal from mines to barges on the Ohio River.

In 1989, Bluefield State College Professor John Sage learned of plans to add more Interstate Highways.

Ammar and Sage came up with the idea for a road that would be called I-73, to run from Detroit, Michigan, to Charleston, South Carolina.

This would provide for a single corridor from Charleston, splitting at Portsmouth, with I-74 turning west to its current east end in Cincinnati, and I-73 continuing north to Detroit.

[13] In North Carolina, any new construction would require more money than the state had available, but Walter C. Sprouse Jr., executive director of the Randolph County Economic Development Corporation, pointed out that most of the route of I-73 included roads already scheduled for improvements that would make them good enough for interstate designation.

[15] However, by November of that year, an organization called Job Link, made up of business leaders from northern North Carolina and southern Virginia, wanted a major highway to connect Roanoke with the Greensboro area.

[16] In April 1995, John Warner, who chaired the Senate subcommittee that would select the route of I-73, announced his support for the Job Link proposal.

[18] The National Highway System Designation Act of 1995 added a branch from Toledo, Ohio, to Sault Ste.

The final major change came with the Transportation Equity Act for the 21st Century of 1998 (TEA-21), when both routes were truncated to Georgetown, South Carolina.

In 2005, Virginia completed an environmental impact statement (EIS) for its recommended route for I-73 from I-81 in Roanoke to the North Carolina border.

[27] NCDOT and SCDOT previously agreed to an I-73 corridor crossing the state line along SC 38 and NC 38 near Hamlet, North Carolina, on February 11, 2005.

[citation needed] In February 2008, the record of decision (ROD) for the final EIS for the section of I-73 from I-95 to SC 22 was signed.

[28] On November 7, 2011, Myrtle Beach city council member Wayne Gray asked area elected officials to consider using Road Improvement and Development Effort (RIDE) funds to pay for a portion of I-73.

[29] In June 2012, Miley and Associates of Columbia recommended improvements to SC 38 and US 501 to create the Grand Strand Expressway (GSX), a position long held by the Coastal Conservation League, which asked for the study.

South Carolina Representative Alan D. Clemmons, head of the National I-73 Corridor Association, said such a plan had been considered but was not likely.

[31] The "I-73 Intermediate Traffic and Revenue Study" by C&M Associates, dated February 2016, was to be presented to state transportation officials March 24, 2016 and included upgrades to SC 22.

RIDE III, if approved by voters, would also provide funding for the Southern Evacuation Lifeline,[32] a proposed 28-mile (45 km) limited-access highway which would start at the western terminus of SC 22 with US 501 and allow a more direct route west from the southern Strand, while simultaneously, along with SC 22, completing a beltway around the Myrtle Beach area.

They also announced that had begun right-of-way purchasing within Horry County from the Little Pee Dee River to the eventual connecting point for I-73 and SC 22.

[36] However, South Carolina Governor Henry McMaster's 2024 executive budget, which was released in early-January 2024, did not include any funding for building the route.

Despite the lack of funding, Horry County still plans to work on their section of the future freeway pending the passing of the RIDE IV program.

The Virginia Department of Transportation (VDOT) ran studies on this corridor, but its construction had very low priority compared to other projects in the state.

This section has been sporadically marked as the Future I-73/I-74 Corridor with signs but is not being built to Interstate standards due to a lack of funding.

Nonetheless, the option to designate the corridor as I-73 once all upgrades are complete remains open, contingent upon what happens with the connecting route in West Virginia.

[citation needed] On February 5, 2009, the Governor Ted Strickland proposed allowing tolls to be collected on newly built sections of highway.

[54] The Lenawee County Road Commission is not interested in the freeway, and, according to the president of the Adrian Area Chamber of Commerce, "there seems to be little chance of having an I-73 link between Toledo and Jackson built in the foreseeable future.