TxDOT considering 288 tollway

Some news for those of you who commute to and from Brazoria County regularly: TxDOT is considering building 26 miles of toll lanes along Highway 288. The proposal is for two toll lanes in each direction from Highway 59 to the South Loop, three lanes each way from the Loop to the Beltway, and two lanes in each direction from there to County Road 60 near Iowa Colony. There's room: When the South Freeway was built, a wide median was left in the middle for a future expressway linking downtown with points south.

The proposed toll lanes would help commuters get to and from Pearland and other booming communities south of Houston, and it would also help alleviate some of the congestion on the freeway as more people in southwest Houston and Harris County use 288 as an alternative to Highway 59. "TxDOT always planned for 288 to be a major corridor. We knew there would be a lot of expansion. There would be of course a lot of residential and a lot of coming from Brazoria county into Harris County," TxDOT's Norm Wigington told KHOU. Like the Westpark Tollway, the 288 toll lanes would be totally automatic, meaning people who used them would have to have EZ Tags. Existing lanes of the freeway would remain free.

Expanding Highway 288 has been discussed for years, but it was only fairly recently that the toll option was put on the table, according to The Facts (which, for the record, isn't too excited about the idea of paying to use new lanes). If the project is approved, construction on the tollway could begin within five years.

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Photo: texasfreeway.com