Westpark Tollway extension nearing reality

Suburban leaders are eager to extend the Westpark Tollway deeper into rapidly growing Fort Bend County. Metro owns more than 40 miles of dormant railroad easement in just the right place. So a deal is in the works.

The Metropolitan Transit Authority’s planned sale of right of way in the Westpark Corridor, which it purchased 22 years ago for commuter rail, is a key factor in plans by Fort Bend County officials to extend the tollway from just west of the Grand Parkway to Jones Lane in Fulshear.

The sale to the Fort Bend County Toll Road Authority will fatten Metro’s coffers by $13.8 million and give the transit agency access to regional toll lanes.

Fort Bend officials are waiting on final federal approvals for the long-awaited toll road extension. The land purchase is a necessary step in readying the area for construction, Precinct 3 Commissioner Andy Meyers said.

“I am behind the curve,” Meyers said, noting that funding and environmental delays have dogged the project. “I should have started construction several years ago.”

Plans call for two related projects, built simultaneously. The first would extend the tollway from the Grand Parkway to FM 723, less than two miles away. The second project would expand FM 1093 — a two-lane county road — to two lanes in each direction divided by a large median.

The design essentially leaves room for tollway expansion westward, and 1093 would act

as the frontage roads.

Meyers said he hopes to obtain environmental approvals in the next few months, meaning construction could finish in 2016 or early 2017.

Metro purchased the 58-mile, 100-foot-wide railroad right of way for $71.8 million in 1992. It was part of a larger $113 million purchase of Southern Pacific Railroad property that included operating rights to tracks to Sugar Land. Stalled for a while

The land purchase was envisioned as a longterm move toward Metro developing commuter rail, though even at that time officials predicted much of the land in the corridor was destined to be a toll road.

Commuter rail efforts languished due to the lack of money or firm plans. Metro removed the railroad tracks in the mid’90s and sold portions of the right of way to local officials for toll road expansions for a total price of less than $22.3 million.

For the entire segment within Fort Bend County, the toll road authority will pay $13.8 million and give Metro free access to county toll roads for com- muter buses.

“This is an asset that is not generating transit in the community,” Metro chairman Gilbert Garcia said, noting the agency is focused on its light rail lines and bus system changes in the Houston area.

Metro estimates the value of the more-developed segment of the corridor in Harris County at $40 million. Some of the remaining Harris County section could be used for the proposed University Line light rail expansion.

Metro’s board of directors is tentatively scheduled to approve the sale at its March 27 meeting.

Fort Bend officials don’t need nearly all of the 40 miles left of rail corridor in the county, but Metro officials negotiated a total sale since the western portion would be useless to them without the area closest to Harris County.

The sale is a benefit to Metro, board vice president Allen Watson said, because it returns some of the investment and clears Metro from maintaining a lengthy corridor.

Part of the agreement is that Metro can negotiate to buy some of the property back if it decides to build a rail line in the future. The toll road would not consume the entire width, leaving room for rail. Not sitting idle

“In the meantime this property will not sit idle,” Watson said.

Demand has been building for traffic relief along FM 1093, the county road bordering the parkway, Meyers said, and has increased rapidly after 2005.

“The development came as a response to us improving the Westpark,” he said, referring to the first westward expansion of the toll road.

County officials, Meyers said, then waited to amass the needed property tax revenues.

“I kind of almost have to wait for the development to get there to have the revenues for the road,” he said.

A separate project linking Fulshear and Katy to its north is also taking shape, connecting the area to Interstate 10.

“Fulshear and the area around it, in the not too distant future will be a city of 100,000 people,” Meyers said. “This work on (FM) 1093 is just a part of what’s going to happen.”