Great news for fans of urban sprawl: two highway expansion projects in Fort Bend County are expected to push the suburbs even farther southwest. Highway 90A, which swings through Missouri City and Sugar Land before heading west to Richmond and Rosenberg, is being renovated, and a major reconstruction of Highway 59 will add lanes and widen the Brazos River crossing. It's the 59 expansion that should really open things up for the farther reaches of Fort Bend County:
The freeway now has an average daily traffic load of 81,160 vehicles. By 2023, the average number is expected to be 134,300, [TxDOT spokesman Norm] Wigington said.[...]
The Brazos River has served as an economic boundary in the county with most new development occurring east of the river.
The extra traffic lanes should mean easier access to the neighborhoods and towns west of the Brazos, said [Rosenberg Mayor Joe] Gurecky. He said at least 25 subdivisions are on the drawing board for the Rosenberg area.
"Western Fort Bend County is going to really have an opportunity to grow now with these major highways being constructed," he said.
A large shopping center with a multiplex movie theater is already under construction in Rosenberg — and with those 25 subdivisions being planned, we're sure the area will end up with more strip centers than it can shake a stick at.
Fort Bend County has been listed among the fastest-growing counties in the U.S. for years. The county's population grew 150 percent between 1970 and 1980, 72 percent between 1980 and 1990 and 57 percent between 1990 and 2000 — compared with a national county growth rate of 13 percent. The population now stands somewhere around 450,000 and is expected to triple in the next 30 years. They're going to need a lot of lanes to handle all that.
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Photo from TexasFreeway.com
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