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Tomball Expressway


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Thank you but what I was really referring to was all the construction to be done in between Spring Cypress and Tomball - you know all the feeder roads are in and some of the main highway but the overpasses are yet to be constructed.

Anyone hear anything about the timeframe for any of this?

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part of that was the proposed Aggie Expressway that's supposed to connect to Highway 105 in Navasota and ultimately Highway 6...

the project hasn't stalled but it's slowly coming together....they're making Highway 6 from Bryan to the Navasota city limits a full fledged freeway so part of it is done....the rest will depend on land acquisition and funding..

the Tomball Bypass took forever because of the fight with landowners and Exxon over the oil fields.....

the Expressway is in the works as the frontage roads are built all the way to Magnolia.

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"Aggie" Expressway?

Figures....

Let's build another road to College Station - because we really need it, but hey forget that we desperately need 249 to go all the way into Houston as a freeway. Ridiculous.

Edited by mrfootball
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that was the unofficial name of it because out of the proposed routes one of the routes ran right through family property......with Magnolia's huge neighborhood coming on board it may speed things up...fortunately, the frontage roads are there up until 1488 so it would not be a traffic nightmare

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"Aggie" Expressway?

Figures....

Let's build another road to College Station - because we really need it, but hey forget that we desperately need 249 to go all the way into Houston as a freeway. Ridiculous.

Wow, you're even jealous when just the word "Aggie" is used.

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Yeah the freeway stops at Spring Cypress. I hate hate HATE going down 249 now. It is bottlenecked up to the freeway when you go North on 249 (from Willowbrook area). I wish they would have finished the freeway to Tomball before they started on the bypass. Maybe thats where cars are going to be diverted to when they work on it. But that would kill business so who knows...........

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249 is just freeway from the Beltway out to Spring Cypress. You have several hundred thousand people who use this as a major artery and it doesn't connect directly to downtown - yet they want to buid some 80+ miles out to College Station? Where's the common sense? Finish the damned thing and connect it to I-45 or 610 before building the pork highway to Aggieland.

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249 is just freeway from the Beltway out to Spring Cypress. You have several hundred thousand people who use this as a major artery and it doesn't connect directly to downtown - yet they want to buid some 80+ miles out to College Station? Where's the common sense? Finish the damned thing and connect it to I-45 or 610 before building the pork highway to Aggieland.

I agree. I use this road everyday and it is a constant backup in the morning commute that could be resolved by extending the freeway portion of the road all the way to I-45, and expanding the interchange at the tollway to include a westbound access ramp.. The Aggie highway is just another uneccessary road project that burns me up with the aggie gov that somehow got re-elected. There is no reason that road needs to be built other than a more direct route to gomerville. To Hell what what is needed, we need to make sure we can get to the stadium to watch our mediocre football team.

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I agree. I use this road everyday and it is a constant backup in the morning commute that could be resolved by extending the freeway portion of the road all the way to I-45, and expanding the interchange at the tollway to include a westbound access ramp.. The Aggie highway is just another uneccessary road project that burns me up with the aggie gov that somehow got re-elected. There is no reason that road needs to be built other than a more direct route to gomerville. To Hell what what is needed, we need to make sure we can get to the stadium to watch our mediocre football team.

Good Lord, you people are off the hinge. Anything having to do with TAMU and BCS gets your panties wadded and your conspiracy radars pinging. It would be quite comical if it weren't so sad.

First of all, this freeway (which has been planned since LONG before Perry became governor) will probably not happen for at least another 20 years, and probably even twice that long for a connection to SH 6 in Navasota. Only preliminary routes have been discussed (and very vaguely, I might add) up to Todd Mission. They're still a few years away from a traffic and toll revenue study even that far. And yes, I said toll revenue, so your tax dollars will be making a minimal contribution, if any, for this "more direct route to gomerville."

If you've ever driven up north of Tomball through Magnolia (which judging from your comments, it's been a while), you'd notice the tremendous amount of growth in this area. The discussed freeway is to serve this growth, not to get people to College Station faster. College Station (another exploding area) only gets mentioned when discussing Navasota as the "end of the line," which again, probably won't happen in your lifetime if you're over 40 years old.

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Good Lord, you people are off the hinge. Anything having to do with TAMU and BCS gets your panties wadded and your conspiracy radars pinging. It would be quite comical if it weren't so sad.

First of all, this freeway (which has been planned since LONG before Perry became governor) will probably not happen for at least another 20 years, and probably even twice that long for a connection to SH 6 in Navasota. Only preliminary routes have been discussed (and very vaguely, I might add) up to Todd Mission. They're still a few years away from a traffic and toll revenue study even that far. And yes, I said toll revenue, so your tax dollars will be making a minimal contribution, if any, for this "more direct route to gomerville."

If you've ever driven up north of Tomball through Magnolia (which judging from your comments, it's been a while), you'd notice the tremendous amount of growth in this area. The discussed freeway is to serve this growth, not to get people to College Station faster. College Station (another exploding area) only gets mentioned when discussing Navasota as the "end of the line," which again, probably won't happen in your lifetime if you're over 40 years old.

Concur. This is one of several radial freeways that have been on the books since about the 1960's but that either do not exist or are works-in-progress. It is no less important a route than is a westward Westpark extension, the Bay City Freeway, the Red Bluff Freeway, the Crosby Freeway, or the Alvin Freeway. IMO, the ultimate goal should be to extend a continuous freeway from 249 @ BW8 to I-35 in Waco via Navasota and BCS. Not only would it aide in travel between Houston and the I-35 corridor, but it would provide congestion relief for I-45 because it would be an effective alternate for travelers from Fort Worth, and it would also open up a new evacuation route to the DFW area.

I know that mrfootball is thinking about his own ease of access, and that's all fine and good, but there is a bigger picture too...and it's not to say that the statewide and local ideas of what constitutes success are entirely incompatible, either.

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IMO, the ultimate goal should be to extend a continuous freeway from 249 @ BW8 to I-35 in Waco via Navasota and BCS. Not only would it aide in travel between Houston and the I-35 corridor, but it would provide congestion relief for I-45 because it would be an effective alternate for travelers from Fort Worth, and it would also open up a new evacuation route to the DFW area.

When did Highway 6 shut down?

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:lol:

Yeah, let's spend a half billion dollars to save 4 miles. The bypasses alone is likely to add 4 miles to the trip.

If all you're talking about are people starting at BW8 & 290, then you're right on the mark at a 4-mile savings. But we're a large and growing metropolitan area. Think 20 years down the line, with the Grand Parkway and a lot more sprawl in the northwest, north, and northeast suburbs. Those folks will save more than just four miles...never mind the need for local mobility and accessible developable land. Also, it is generally easier and less painful to build a freeway on greenfield than to keep it on existings ROW...and large landowners may be willing to donate large segments of ROW to increase their property values.

Not to mention that it is only a less direct route from certain parts of town.

Yeah, residents of Copperfield would probably still use 290/6 to get to BCS and points northwest of there, but just because a few people are better positioned to take an alternate route, that doesn't mean that a new primary route wouldn't be viable. Should I-45 through Texas City not have been built because residents of Hitchcock could better access the Galveston causeway via Highway 6?

Edited by TheNiche
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I think this is less about 'mobility' than it is about the upward mobility of all of the landowners who own the soon-to-be prime real estate that will open up along the route. Wouldn't be surprised to see some of our favorite elected officials, their friends & family owning some of the primo parcels.

Edited by mrfootball
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I think this is less about 'mobility' than it is about the upward mobility of all of the landowners who own the soon-to-be prime real estate that will open up along the route. Wouldn't be surprised to see some of our favorite elected officials, their friends & family owning some of the primo parcels.

Yeah, large landholders tend to be politically connected regardless of who is in power. It is given. That doesn't mean that freeway expansions and extensions should not take place. It is all about the consumer.

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Just to clarify my position on this. I don't give a crap whether or not they extend this road out to Timbuktu...as long as they finish the freeway all the way to I-45 or into 610, first.

Edited by mrfootball
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Just to clarify my position on this. I don't give a crap whether or not they extend this road out to Timbuktu...as long as they finish the freeway all the way to I-45 or into 610, first.

Incidentally, I just ran commuter statistics from this really cool website. Only about 18.7% of workers that reside in your area commute to work in the Inner Loop or Galleria/Post Oak area. Most work within the area that they live, closer to Greenspoint, IAH, along 290, in The Woodlands, or down towards Westchase/Energy Corridor. Seems more like existing corridors need expansion to serve the majority that work there than that there needs to be a new route just to serve that minority of people that try to live where you do and try to work in the central city.

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Just to clarify my position on this. I don't give a crap whether or not they extend this road out to Timbuktu...as long as they finish the freeway all the way to I-45 or into 610, first.

And, I agree. My point was only that 249 and 290 are not far enough apart to make a difference driving to Ft. Worth.

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