Tollway enters next phase
The 249 Partnership has ushered in the next phase of development linking the first phase of the Tomball Tollway project from Harris County to Montgomery County by early 2019. The second phase is a 1.6-mile stretch that begins at FM 2920 and continues across Spring Creek into Montgomery County.
The 249 Partnership has ushered in the next phase of development linking the first phase of the Tomball Tollway project from Harris County to Montgomery County by early 2019.
Rob Maxwell, vice president of the transportation division for Jones and Carter and one of three Tomball area representatives on the 249 Partnership, provided an update about the project at the group’s annual meeting recently in Magnolia.
“The design on the Harris County side is about 60 percent complete, and design on the Montgomery County side is about 30 percent complete,” he said. “They are staggered this way so that when we let them for construction, (the design) will be finished at about the same time.”
The second phase is a 1.6-mile stretch that begins at FM 2920 and continues across Spring Creek into Montgomery County.
Once the entire project is completed, motorists will be able to travel nonstop from Tomball and connect with Texas 6 in Navasota.
The design on the second segment, which is projected at more than $120 million, began last summer, with adjustments to the plan presented for public input during a meeting hosted at Lone Star College-Tomball in December.
Those changes included the addition of exit ramps between Brown Road and Hardin Store Road in Montgomery County, new main lanes over Spring Creek, as well as elevated roads and bridges between Brown Road and Baker Road, and another at Zion Road.
The Montgomery County segment, which will pick up at Spring Creek and continue to FM 1774 in Pinehurst, is estimated at $30 million.
Both projects are expected to be completed by the start of 2019.
“Things are going full speed ahead,” Maxwell added. “But if you’d have asked me two years ago if things were going to happen this fast, I would have kind of been doubtful, but a lot of good people are moving things in the right direction.”
In February, James Baker, director of transportation in the Houston region for Halff Engineers, shared an update with members of the Greater Tomball Area Chamber of Commerce transportation committee on the planning and progress of both projects.
“It’s probably an ideal project because Harris County is building all that infrastructure up to Spring Creek, and then the Texas Department of Transportation is carrying it north of us, so this was the perfect project for them to get into the business of project development for toll roads,” Baker said in reference to Montgomery County and its new toll road authority.
In April 2015, HCTRA opened the first phase of the Tomball Tollway between Spring-Cypress Road and FM 2920.
The 6.7-mile segment cost $73 million to build and logged 7.9 million transactions in all of 2015.
Since its opening in April 2015, the Tomball Tollway has recorded more than eight million vehicles through its gantries.
It’s believed the second phase will attract just as much traffic when it is finally completed within the next two years.
That was a concern early in the process when residents worried the tollway would steer economic development away from the city. Lamar Casparis, who represents Tomball on the 249 Partnership, said residents and city leaders found the tollway spurred development.
“If people want to get through, can get through so our streets are not congested with traffic,” he said. “The toll road helps people get through town and we had to give them a reason to stop.”
Magnolia officials, who are concerned that Texas 249 will loop around the city instead of going straight through, have had many of those same discussions, and are planning for what may come as developers begin looking forward to 2019.
Already, plans to develop nearly a dozen subdivisions in and around Magnolia are beginning to take shape.
“You’d be amazed at the difference that the announcement of the 249 (expansion) has made to Magnolia,” said Magnolia City Administrator Paul Mendes. “Just about everything is based on when Texas 249 (construction) is starting. They are all waiting to see that dirt getting turned and they are all going to start laying out their roads.”
As a result, Mendes added that developers are looking ahead to the completion of the segment and that there were likely be more announcements for retail, commercial and residential development throughout 2016 and into 2017.
“This has opened a tremendous amount of interest in development around Magnolia,” Mendes said. “It’s very much like Tomball. If folks want to come to Magnolia, they will come because there is something here they want.”