The Pearland side of the Reporter News website tells us to expect more highway construction as 288 is widened to meet the increasing demands that new residents are placing on it. The huge median from I-59 to County Road 60--about a mile north of 1462--is slated to turn into a toll road.
The construction project is in response to a Mobility Study conducted by the Texas Department of Transportation and the Houston Galveston Area Council. A variety of these studies, including one for the long forgotten I-35 expansion, are posted on the H-GAC website. Similar studies are posted on the TX-DoT website.
I find it interesting that we don't talk about freeway construction anymore, we talk about mobility or transportation. When freeways are built, somebody looses property--but mobility helps us all get to where we need to go (a nice fuzzy thing) or evacuate when necessary (an important security thing). The topic is still controversial however, witness the recent uproar in the Texas Legislature regarding the Governor's plans for expanded toll roads.
Paul Burka has also written in Texas Monthly that the most hated man in the Texas Legislature is Ric Williamson, the head of the Texas Transportation Commission.
I've driven down 288 from my home in the Heights regularly since 1998 and the changes have been, and are about to get even more, dramatic.
