First stretch of 3-lane Texas 249 tollway set to open Saturday
The parade of football fans toward College Station may have been kyboshed by COVID, but that has not stopped state transportation officials from charging ahead with their so-called Aggie Highway, the first stretch of which will be a tollway.
The first segment of the planned Pinehurst-to-Todd Mission
toll road opens Saturday, according to the Texas Department of Transportation. The 6.4 mile stretch from FM 1774 to FM 1488 in Magnolia will be free to use for at least a few weeks and includes three main lanes in each direction before tapering to two lanes east of FM 149.
For residents in Magnolia, where billboards advertise new subdivisions on a rotating basis,
it means faster trips to and from Tomball and other spots around northwest Harris County and southern Montgomery County.
“It makes getting from Point A to Point B faster, and that’s a sign of progress,” said Don Doering, city administrator in Magnolia. “But it’s progress at a price.”
The segment is the first of three planned for the road — tolled southeast of Todd Mission and free from there to Navasota.
Doering said while many drivers may grumble at paying, they will be doing so for smoother trips.
“That’s an improvement and a reason why we’re seeing the progress we are in Magnolia,” he said, adding that local officials have focused on managing the growth rather than fighting it.
In some cases, it can shave several minutes off lengthy trips up FM 1774, which can be backed up by traffic lights and trains. Unlike the farm-to-market road and other nearby routes, the new tollway segment soars above the Union Pacific Railroad.
That feeds into the faster commutes officials said they wanted to deliver nearly a decade ago. As plans for the road started rolling, TxDOT and Montgomery County officials wanted a fast way to address residential growth along Texas 249 in the Houston area spreading northwest toward the rapid development around BryanCollege Station.
The question was how to pay for it, after Harris County and Montgomery County pushed for quicker construction of their segments south of the TxDOT project.
State transportation officials sought to make all of it a tollway, but ran into opposition in Navasota and surrounding areas, as driver attitudes shifted away from toll projects and many feared a freeway cutting through the community would scar their rural way of life. Grimes County residents and businesses also questioned the chosen route and the potential loss of sales to a highway with far fewer exits than the current freeways.
TxDOT in 2017 borrowed $225 million to jump-start construction, which will be repaid by the tolls, and signed a nearly $600 million agreement with Houstonbased Williams Brothers Construction to build and maintain the entire tollway and highway for 15 years.
When land — much of which was donated by area developers — and other costs are added, the entire route is valued at $800 million.
Work continues on the tollway northwest of FM 1488, where the road again joins FM 1774 north of Todd Mission. That segment is expected to open in eight to 12 months.
Meanwhile, it could be two more years before the free lanes in Grimes County open.