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Fort Bend Tollway Connection To Loop 610 West & South Post Oak Rd.


DJ2025

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How do they plan to squeeze a freeway into the right away on South Post Oak (between Bellfort and Willowbend Blvd)???

I've been trying to find some schematics because I'm curious as to how they will do it without tearing down every business along that route.

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That's going to be the first time in awhile where they've had to do that in Houston to build a freeway (tear down multiple businesses)

At least that I'm aware of.........

It's been going on for a couple of years now for the Katy Freeway expansion with both homes and neighborhoods. True, it's not a new freeway but it involves a lot more property than what the Post Oak tollway project does.

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That is part of an old freeway that was planned for the area. The Bay City freeway which was first planned in 1971 but later deleted in 1979. The plan was to have a freeway extending from that corner of the loop south past the beltway going down parallel to the coast to Bay City in Matagorda County.

Those overpasses were the beginnings of that freeway. Check out a pretty cool site if you haven't already:

Texas Freeway

This will give some info on roads around Texas, past, present and future.

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That is part of an old freeway that was planned for the area.  The Bay City freeway which was first planned in 1971 but later deleted in 1979.  The plan was to have a freeway extending from that corner of the loop south past the beltway going down parallel to the coast to Bay City in Matagorda County.

Those overpasses were the beginnings of that freeway. Check out a pretty cool site if you haven't already:

Texas Freeway

This will give some info on roads around Texas, past, present and future.

Yeah, TexasFreeway.com is a great site.

I remember when the South/West Loop 610/South Post Oak Blvd. interchange was incomplete in the 1980s and a couple of ramps were stubs that connected to nothing. In about 1987 the completed interchange and the short freeway segment on South Post Oak from the interchange to just south of West Bellfort (including the West Bellfort overpass) was opened to traffic. Before that when you took the South Post Oak Blvd. exit from the West Loop you went over the overpass above North and South Braeswood and then were forced onto a temporary exit to the South Post Oak frontage road and a traffic light at West Bellfort. I remember driving onto that old stub of freeway well and taking the temporary exit to get to my grandparents' house in Willow Meadows in the late 1970s.

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  • 10 months later...
Post Oak......between Bellfort and Highway 90, there's hardly any room for a freeway.

They are going to have to tear down a lot of homes and businesses for that. Any opposition to it so far?

I would imagine buyouts first.

From there, if extreme measures are needed, eminent domain could be authorized. This is currently happening to homeowners in Arlington for land to be cleared for a new Dallas Cowboys stadium.

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Post Oak......between Bellfort and Highway 90, there's hardly any room for a freeway.

They are going to have to tear down a lot of homes and businesses for that. Any opposition to it so far?

HCTRA has a schematic of the plans online, showing the properties that are affected.

http://www.hctra.com/engineering/pdf_fortbend/special.pdf

It looks like no homes will be displaced. South of Willowbend, properties on the west side of Post Oak Road are affected. At Willowbend, commercial properties on both sides are affected. Displacements are minimized by using the narrowest possible right-of-way for the tollway.

There is opposition to the project, mainly from Westbury-area civic associations and the CTC (Citizens Transportation Coalition, which is opposing just about all highway/tollway projects in Houston). I'm not aware of opposition from interests immediately along the corridor.

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Nothing. I find that the CTC in general if completely opposed to any new road construction or even a comprimise.

Good find MaxConcrete. At the rate they're buing the lower extension the Beltway to US 90, this project should be done in no time.

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  • 1 month later...
Guest Plastic

Anybody ridden this road? I heard it completed to HWY 90. How many lanes is it? DOes it have any frontages? Got any pictures.

Now if it's owned and operated by F Bend I don't know how they've got part of it in Harris County. Unless Harris County owns part of it. They are supposed to continue it to The Loop on or paralell to S.Poast Oak. I don't know how they are gonna do that since there isn't much room.

ANybody have any pics?

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Yes I have ridden it. I don't think it has feeder roads. It is two or three lanes. I hope it doesn't go all the way to the loop.

My opinion on it is that it doesn't help much. When I go out that way I take 59 and then change roads a couple times. I was convinced by some friends out there to take ft bend TR. It was pretty empty, but it took a good five or more minutes longer compared to my route with medium traffic.

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I don't know why they built it. aAlthough there was a HWY needed from  The Loop to McHard Rd.

It was built to spur development in Fort Bend County. A group of developers helped get the ball rolling many years ago.

Similarly, developers are pushing a toll road out to Brazoria County as well for the same reason...to get access to currently undeveloped (and cheap) land.

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That's HW 5, or something. Currently, the HW would tie into the double portion of I45 south, near UofH. As it is now, all there is is a spur leading from the freeway ontom a few feeder lanes. (At least I think so....)

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Guest Plastic

That's HWY 35 you mean. That's going to be The Alvin Expressway. It's going to be the main route for 25 and the one now is gonna be the 35 Buisness.

I just don't know why it doesn't continue on the key maps. Look on your key map and the proposed 35 stops around Hobby Airport.

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ANybody have any pics?

Yes, photos are available.

This link includes photos of the most recently opened section, from BW8 to 90A

http://www.houstonfreeways.com/modern/2005...ton_update.aspx

This link is a driving tour of the first section, from SH 6 to BW8, taken September 1, 2004, just a few days after it opened

http://www.houstonfreeways.com/modern/2004...nd_parkway.aspx

There are also links to pages with construction progress reports on this page

http://www.houstonfreeways.com/modern_photos.aspx

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The section to US 90 is not finished yet. The toll road is pushed by the developers and will provide some relief to US 59 by letting traffic access the south and west loops from S Post Oak.

This project will also make the land between the Beltway and the Loop along it's corridor developable because of access.

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  • 1 year later...
Post Oak......between Bellfort and Highway 90, there's hardly any room for a freeway.

They are going to have to tear down a lot of homes and businesses for that. Any opposition to it so far?

This section was on the maps even back in the 60's. The dotted line went from Bellfort south, turning slightly to the west. You can see the alingment for a short distance with the building setbacks along the west side of S. Post Oak Rd. The dotted line then curved

to meet up with Hilcroft south of A90. This section of Hilcroft was already wide and waiting for the freeway.

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  • 5 years later...

I live in Fort Bend County and I am just amazed at how the traffic conjestion has exploded since I moved there in 2008. The Southwest Freeway is a joke, Highway 90 is getting crazy, Westpark & Highway 6 South (come on, are u serious) ! Was thinking maybe they could consider connecting the useless Fort Bend Tollway to South Post Oak and have that freeway built out from the connection at the West Loop south of Bellaire, all the way out to where the Grand Parkway is going to be south of Rosenberg. That would provide some relief for us out in Fort Bend (second largest county in the region, 585,375 pop). Just saying, please do something TXDOT.

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The original plan was to have the Fort Bend Tollway connect to Post Oak and 610 but because of it's limited use I believe that plan has been put on scrapped. Hwy 90 wouldn't be bad if they could do something about the 610 back-up. Westpark was doomed to start with since the railroad wouldn't give them enough land to make more lanes.

I agree 59 is getting really bad.

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To play devil's advocate, the RR could say, "It's not our fault you don't live closer to your work place."

if you're talking about the ROW on the south side of the Westpark Tollway it belongs to METRO all the way west to near Eagle Lake. The commissioners crammed the Wpark into the smallest possible space to avoid eminent domain/spending more $. that's why the sound walls westbound around Alief are mere feet from the back walls of a couple of subdivisions.

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Something really needs to be done to somooow get people to take transit to work. Not sure what will work here, but the freeways are just getting worse and it will be extremely expensive to expand urban freeways such as 59. Insanely expensive.

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if you're talking about the ROW on the south side of the Westpark Tollway it belongs to METRO all the way west to near Eagle Lake. The commissioners crammed the Wpark into the smallest possible space to avoid eminent domain/spending more $. that's why the sound walls westbound around Alief are mere feet from the back walls of a couple of subdivisions.

My understanding was that they would have liked to make Westpark wider, but METRO reserved the land for rail, which would be at least 20+ years from now.

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Something really needs to be done to somooow get people to take transit to work. Not sure what will work here, but the freeways are just getting worse and it will be extremely expensive to expand urban freeways such as 59. Insanely expensive.

This is what would work (bottom paragraphs):

http://houstonstrate...-potential.html

...

What if Metro kept the GMP as-is, but to raise funds for the Universities line, it sold its HOV/HOT lane network to HCTRA or TXDOT (who I think would do a better job managing and expanding it) and sold its commuter buses and Park-and-Ride lots to private operators? Metro would get the capital it needs, and Houston could get

the vastly more effective commuter transit system it needs: a comprehensive urban network of HOT lanes (maybe branded as “ MaX Lanes

(Managed eXpress Lanes) - moving the maximum number of people at maximum speed”) connecting all of the job centers and residential areas.

These lanes, in turn, may be best utilized by a

private express bus/shuttle/van and park-and-ride market providing single-seat service connecting every suburban residential community with each of Houston's decentralized major job centers. Private shuttle operators could compete on routes, schedule, reliability, price, service, and amenities like wifi and laptop trays. These services, in turn, could enable Houston to hold on to and even grow our job and tax base rather than see them dispersed to the far suburbs because of increasing traffic congestion (the new Exxon Woodlands mega-campus is a canary in the coal mine here). It could also be of great benefit to employers, allowing their employees to be more productive during their commutes (especially email). Finally, it could also open up new job opportunities to Houstonians by bringing additional options within their acceptable commute range.

I don't know how much money Metro might raise with this approach. They say they've put $1+ billion into the HOV network. I'm guessing the net present value of the expected cash stream from them being converted to HOT lanes is far less than that. Don't know what the P&R land or buses are worth. But I'm guessing they might get into substantial hundred-million dollar numbers, which would have to be a boost for the Universities line. An option at least worth exploring?

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