The Westpark Tollway, also Fort Bend Westpark Tollway, is a limited-access

toll road A toll road, also known as a turnpike or tollway, is a public or private road (almost always a controlled-access highway in the present day) for which a fee (or '' toll'') is assessed for passage. It is a form of road pricing typically implement ...

Texas Texas (, ; Spanish: ''Texas'', ''Tejas'') is a state in the South Central region of the United States. At 268,596 square miles (695,662 km2), and with more than 29.1 million residents in 2020, it is the second-largest U.S. state by ...

, serving western

Houston Houston (; ) is the most populous city in Texas, the most populous city in the Southern United States, the fourth-most populous city in the United States, and the sixth-most populous city in North America, with a population of 2,304,580 ...

and Harris County, and northeastern

Fort Bend County Fort Bend County is a county located in the U.S. state of Texas. The county was founded in 1837 and organized the next year. It is named for a blockhouse at a bend of the Brazos River. The community developed around the fort in early days. Th ...

. Construction on the facility began in 2001 and portions of the road were opened to traffic in May 2004. Construction of the roadway was completed in August 2005. The Westpark Tollway begins on Westpark Drive just past the South Rice Avenue intersection in the Uptown District of Houston and runs approximately west to Farm to Market Road 1093 just past

Farm to Market Road 723 A farm (also called an agricultural holding) is an area of land that is devoted primarily to agricultural processes with the primary objective of producing food and other crops; it is the basic facility in food production. The name is used f ...

(Spring Green Boulevard) in

Fulshear, Texas Fulshear ( ) is a city in northwest Fort Bend County, Texas, United States, and is located on the western edge of the metropolitan area. The population was 16,856 as of the 2020 census. History Before Texas Independence The history of Fulshea ...

. It runs roughly parallel and to the south of

Westheimer Road Westheimer Road () is an arterial east–west road in Houston, Texas, United States. It runs from Bagby Street in Downtown and terminates at the Westpark Tollway on the southern edge of George Bush Park, stretching about long. The street was ...

( FM 1093) in Harris County and concurrently with FM 1093 in Fort Bend County. The

Harris County Toll Road Authority The Harris County Toll Road Authority (HCTRA, pronounced "HECK-trah") maintains and operates a toll road system in the Greater Houston area. Its headquarters are located in Houston's Fairbanks/Northwest Crossing neighborhood. History HCTRA c ...

(HCTRA) and the

Fort Bend County Toll Road Authority The Fort Bend County Toll Road Authority (FBCTRA), also called the Fort Bend Grand Parkway Toll Road Authority (FBGPTRA), operates three toll roads in Fort Bend County and is headquartered at 1 Fluor Daniel Dr in Sugar Land in the U.S. state of Te ...

(FBCTRA) operate the Westpark Tollway jointly. The HCTRA section is simply named Westpark Tollway; however, the 8-mile (12 km) section of the toll road operated by the FBCTRA is named Fort Bend Westpark Tollway. There are three major interchanges in between: the Southwest Freeway ( I-69)/( US 59), the West Sam Houston Tollway (

Beltway 8 Beltway 8 (BW8), the Sam Houston Parkway, along with the Sam Houston Tollway, is an beltway around the city of Houston, Texas, United States, lying entirely within Harris County. Beltway 8, a state highway maintained by the Texa ...

), and

Grand Parkway State Highway 99 (SH 99), also known as the Grand Parkway, is a ring road in the U.S. state of Texas. Its first section opened on August 31, 1994. When the route is completed, it will be the longest beltway in the U.S., the world's seventh-long ...

( State Highway 99), along with several minor interchanges. The namesake of the tollway is Westpark Drive—an east–west major arterial running through a mostly industrial area. Like other toll roads in the

Houston area Greater Houston, designated by the United States Office of Management and Budget as Houston–The Woodlands–Sugar Land, is the fifth-most populous metropolitan statistical area in the United States, encompassing nine counties along the Gulf C ...

, the

speed limit Speed limits on road traffic, as used in most countries, set the legal maximum speed at which vehicles may travel on a given stretch of road. Speed limits are generally indicated on a traffic sign reflecting the maximum permitted speed - expre ...

is —even inside Beltway 8. The Westpark Tollway is the first fully electronic toll road in the United States. There are no tollbooths or toll collectors along either section of the route. The only way to legally drive on the road is by using a transponder unit attached to a vehicle's windshield (either HCTRA's EZ TAG, NTTA's TollTag, TxTAG, PikePass from Oklahoma Turnpike Authority, or

K-Tag The Kansas Turnpike is a , freeway-standard toll road that lies entirely within the US state of Kansas. It runs in a general southwest–northeast direction from the Oklahoma border to Kansas City. It passes through several major Kansas cities, ...

from

Kansas Turnpike Authority The Kansas Turnpike Authority (KTA) is the organization that owns and maintains the Kansas Turnpike. Authority board The KTA is headed by a board of five members, two of which are appointed by the governor of the state. In addition, the Chairm ...

). These transponders communicate with overhead sensors to deduct tolls from the user's toll account.

Fort Bend County Section

The Fort Bend section ties into the HCTRA portion of the tollway and is operated by the

(FBCTRA), under the alias of the Fort Bend Westpark Tollway. The project, completed on August 10, 2005, improves auto mobility for residents in northeastern Fort Bend County by creating a new east–west corridor with access to State Highway 6,

Sam Houston Tollway Sam, SAM or variants may refer to: Places * Sam, Benin * Sam, Boulkiemdé, Burkina Faso * Sam, Bourzanga, Burkina Faso * Sam, Kongoussi, Burkina Faso * Sam, Iran * Sam, Teton County, Idaho, United States, a populated place People and fictiona ...

(Beltway 8), I-69/ US 59, and the Uptown District of Houston. The Fort Bend section of the Westpark Tollway is patrolled by Fort Bend County Constable, Precinct 4. Additional coverage is provided by the Fort Bend County Sheriff's Department or other agencies as needed.FBCTRA Question and Answer page
/ref>

Future Segments

Parallel to the Fort Bend Westpark Tollway, FM 1093 has been widened by Texas Department of Transportation (TxDOT) to four lanes. FM 1093 at this location serves as a toll-free frontage road for the tollway. The Fort Bend Westpark Tollway will add an additional four lanes to this effort—resulting in an eight-lane road. TxDOT is funding construction of the tollway interchanges at State Highway 99 and FM 1464. Additionally, a 2012 expansion plan shows a Westpark Tollway addition to the city of

. The expansion promises a connection with the future Fulshear Parkway, and additional direct connection flyovers with SH-99.FBCTRA
/ref> Construction of phase one to extend Westpark Tollway from the Grand Parkway to just west of Spring Green Boulevard began in February 2016 and was finished in November 2017. From 2017 to 2020, FM 1093 was expanded from two to four lanes from the Grand Parkway to James Lane near Fulshear; the highway will serve as frontage roads for future extensions of the Westpark Tollway.

Harris County Section

The Harris County portion of the tollway

right-of-way Right of way is the legal right, established by grant from a landowner or long usage (i.e. by prescription), to pass along a specific route through property belonging to another. A similar ''right of access'' also exists on land held by a gov ...

was acquired by HCTRA from METRO, which had previously purchased the entire railroad right-of-way from Southern Pacific in 1992. The Westpark corridor has a storied history as a transportation possibility. Originally on the books in the 1950s as the location of what is now

Interstate 69 Interstate 69 (I-69) is an Interstate Highway in the United States currently consisting of 10 unconnected segments with an original continuous segment from Indianapolis, Indiana, northeast to the Canadian border in Port Huron, Michigan, ...

U.S. Highway 59 U.S. Route 59 (US 59) is a north–south United States highway (though it was signed east–west in parts of Texas). A latecomer to the U.S. numbered route system, US 59 is now a border-to-border route, part of the NAFTA Corridor Highway Sy ...

(Southwest Freeway) before developers lured it south to serve Sharpstown, the Westpark corridor has seen several transportation plans. The first time a toll road was mentioned was in a 1979 survey of several routes by the Texas Turnpike Authority, leading to the construction of the

Hardy Toll Road The Hardy Toll Road is a toll road in the Greater Houston area of the U.S. state of Texas, maintained by the Harris County Toll Road Authority. The route runs from Interstate 610 near central Houston to Interstate 45 just south of the Harris– ...

in Northern Harris County by HCTRA. A heavy rail line along the corridor was floated in the 1980s, but failed to win voter approval, along with a monorail that was ended with Mayor Kathy Whitmire in 1991. Another commuter rail idea ended as METRO purchased the corridor and planned to run trains, but reversed itself and floated plans for a reversible high occupancy vehicle and bus transit lane to supplement the Southwest Freeway, tearing out the tracks in the mid 1990s. In 1999, HCTRA and METRO reached an agreement for half of the right-of-way to go towards a toll road run by HCTRA and the other half for use by METRO for light rail

Whether or not it will be the main corridor for the University Line is a contentious issue - Richmond Avenue, to the north, emerged as another option under consideration, along with the fact that Westpark Drive and its corresponding railroad right-of-way do not intersect METRORail at any point, much less Wheeler Station, which was chosen as the junction between the lines. As of 2006, a final corridor has not been chosen. As of 2014, a combination of Westpark and Richmond has been chosen as the University Line (METRORail), but the city has not allocated money for the project.

Exit list

External links

Fort Bend County Toll Road AuthorityHarris County Toll Road Authority
{{Toll Roads in Texas Transportation in Fort Bend County, Texas Freeways in Houston Toll roads in Texas Transportation in Harris County, Texas County roads in Fort Bend County, Texas County roads in Harris County, Texas