Joe Southern
Brazos County commissioners received a status update Tuesday on several highway projects that voters approved in the 2022 transportation bond, including the proposed Inner Loop East.
Consultant John Polster, president of Innovative Transportation Solutions (ITS), gave the court an update on the top four projects, noting that the court has completely turned over since the bond was proposed with the exception of County Judge Duane Peters.
In addition to the Inner Loop East, the projects include improving the interchange at state highways 21 and 47 (John Sharp Parkway) by the RELLIS campus, widening Leonard Road (FM 1688) from Highway 47 to FM 2818 (Harvey Mitchell Parkway), and widening Harvey Road from Associates Avenue to FM 158.
Polster said that three of the projects will move forward to construction but that the Inner Loop East will only go through the environmental clearance phase and stop because there are no current plans to build the 20-mile, four-lane highway around Bryan and College Station and there is no funding for the project that he estimates will cost $350 million. He said the purpose of the current environmental study is to identify a future route and then to preserve the corridor from future development.
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The Bryan College Station Metropolitan Planning Organization identified the loop as a potential need in its 2050 mobility plan.
"The next step is to identify that preferred alternative [route] that has the least impact," he said.
Polster said two of three planned public meetings have been held and the number of impacted properties has been reduced.
"Right now, there's two houses in one alternative being displaced, and 81 parcels being impacted," he said. "We're hoping to get that 81 parcels down more by going out and doing detailed survey work on-site to determine if there's tweaks we can make. One of the tweaks is right now we're assuming a 70-mile-an-hour design speed, because that's where you start. We can lower that to 50 miles, which will make the turn curves be able to be more tight, which means we could probably miss some more parcels."
The Inner Loop East has come under fire from impacted residents who claim they were never told about the proposed road until they were invited to a public meeting last November. Since then, a group called No East Loop has addressed commissioners during public comments at each weekly court session, in addition to holding their own public meetings and monthly barbecues.
In a statement after the meeting, No East Loop leaders Kyle and Beverly Greenwood expressed concerns about the Inner Loop East portion of the presentation, noting they had 10 people speak in opposition to it during public comments.
"Collectively, we stand behind the statements we've made about the improper handling of this project from day one. There has been no transparency. There has been no citizen participation. The ballot language was vague and broad and leant itself to abuse and misappropriation," they said.
Other projects
Polster said the interchange at highways 47 and 21 has an estimated cost of $204 million.
"What we're proposing to do at the end of the project -- if it gets through all the regulatory processes and funded -- is to reconfigure 47 and 21 interchange, construct grade separation overpasses at 47 and Fifth [Street] and 21 at a new street they haven't named yet," he said. "So where we're at now is [engineering firm] Binkley Barfield has been doing data collection and doing field work."
The Leonard Road project has an estimated cost of $46 million.
"We're looking at widening an existing two-lane road to a four-lane roadway, improve the intersection for mobility and safety," Polster said, adding that there would be a continuous shared-use path for pedestrians and bicycles.
He said medians would be kept close to intersections so they do not impede left turns along the road. He said the engineering firm RG Miller is currently studying the route and analyzing road alignments with the intent of submitting documents for approval in the spring of 2026.
The construction estimate for Harvey Road is $59 million.
"The intent is to widen it from two- to four-lane roadway with intersection improvements for mobility and safety; continuous shared-use path, which is the 10 foot or better for pedestrians and bicycles," Polster said.
He said the goal is to have the schematic design sent to the state for approval by the summer of 2026. There are some considerations that have to be addressed, such as crossing Carter's Creek and the use of Veterans Park.
After the presentation, County Judge Duane Peters thanked Polster, but none of the members of the court asked questions about the projects. Commissioner Fred Brown was absent.
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