Trips to the beach on I-45 might take a little longer
Six Texas Department of Transportation projects along Interstate 45 could slow beach trips slightly this year, continuing a tradition of tearing down and rebuilding miles of the freeway.
As with previous jobs, the aim is to keep three lanes open in each direction — the same number of lanes drivers always had — while keeping construction of more than $874.7 million worth of new road proceeding.
“There is a lot going on, and we are mindful there is a lot happening on (Galveston) Island,” TXDOT spokesman Danny Perez said. “We’re trying to minimize closures and delays while moving ahead to deliver the projects.”
All of I-45 on the mainland in Galveston County is now part of the work zone, more than 14 miles from south of FM 517 to the Mitchell Causeway onto Galveston Island.
Work zones should come as no surprise to drivers. Encountering a construction slowdown on I-45 for many drivers is like expecting a sea breeze on the Galveston seawall: only surprising when it is not there. Drivers often joke that the freeway, portions of which turned 70 last year, will be great, just as soon as TXDOT finishes it.
“I’ve lived here since 1962, the last 30 in Clear Lake,” said Lee Bradford, 82, who called herself “blissfully retired” and unaffected by the work. “If there is a time it wasn’t under construction, I do not recall it.”
Summer, meanwhile, is the busy season for the beach, making Galveston a destination
from Mardi Gras to Labor Day weekend. It’s also a busy time for road construction.
The current work is the latest in a march from the Sam Houston Tollway that has been part of a larger plan to make the freeway at least four lanes in each direction to Galveston. Some of the same workers for Williams Brothers Construction, which has been the low bidder on every segment of the work since 2013, have kept going from Dixie Farm Road south, past FM 2351 in Clear Lake, then El Dorado and Bay Area Boulevard, and finally the NASA 1 Bypass.
Drivers last week were mixed about the complications caused by the construction. Stan Bryant,
who moonlights as a delivery and ride-hailing driver, said motorists just need to adjust to the changes, attributing what he called a minimal delay to panicked drivers.
Laura Nice, 40, blamed officials for stretching out too much of the work.
“In Clear Lake, they didn’t tear it all up at once,” she said, noting that El Dorado and Bay Area were done at different times to allow one to be unaffected. “Now, there’s just miles of ” construction.
The northernmost end of the work is the southbound main lanes spanning Clear Creek, which also is the Galveston County line. At the creek, the
freeway narrows to three lanes, for now.
Work on the southbound side of the freeway — traffic now is using the northbound lanes and frontage road for both directions — is expected to get traffic on the bridge by the end of March, said Paige Lebarr, a project manager for RS&H, the consultant overseeing construction for TXDOT.
Crews still will be in the area, Lebarr said, though drivers will have full use of the freeway as work continues on the frontage roads and other finishing touches.
To the south, drivers will wait months, in some cases years, for the orange cones to go away. Significant
work remains at FM 1764 and the Texas City Wye, as cross streets and frontage roads receive new drainage and additional lanes.
Most of the segments received funding through the Texas Clear Lanes program aimed at congestion relief from voter-approved funding in 2014 and 2015.
Both local elected and highway officials long have said a wider I-45 is needed to accommodate commercial and residential growth.
“You don’t have the higher traffic volumes yet, but they are coming,” Perez said. “They are getting there. … That’s why we are doing these projects.”
Just north of Clear Creek, daily traffic volume on I-45 has jumped from more than 122,000 vehicles in 2011, to 147,000 in 2021, the most recent year of verified TXDOT traffic counts.
Travel drops fast south of Dickinson, however, to about 88,000 vehicles, based on 2021 counts, and finally to 51,000 south of the Texas City Wye.
As work continues, officials said, drivers still will have three lanes, each 12 feet wide, most of the way, exactly as they did before work started. It just may not feel that way when the lanes are bracketed by concrete barriers.
“It is just the perception once the shoulders go away,” said David Lazaro, TXDOT’S area engineer for Galveston County.
Complications come, however, the closer the work gets to the coast.
“Any little bit of rain, we are having to pump water out,” Lazaro said.