Plan to widen FM 1488 a sign of development to come in Waller County

Unlike the freeways, however, FM 1488 has not experienced the housing tracts and service stations that dot the pastures. For Amsler and others — whether they welcome wider roads or not — it no longer is a matter of if FM 1488 grows, but when.

A $202 million project unveiled earlier this month by the Texas Department of Transportation would take the last 20-mile segment of FM 1488 from Montgomery County to Hempstead and convert it to a four-lane divided highway through the undulating, green farms of Waller County — many of which are unlikely to stay that way for long.

Though the design shown to about 100 residents on Aug. 4 is the first of many TxDOT will take out for public comment before it builds anything, the plan is what highway officials will base the next year of design work on, with tentative plans for construction in 2024, if funding allows.

Along FM 1488, daily traffic varies from about 5,600 vehicles per day near Montgomery County to about half that in central Waller County near Fields Store, where grazing cattle and goats are a more common sight than homes. Where FM 1488 already has been widened and developed on the other side of the county line toward Magnolia, more than 10,000 cars cross the road daily, and 16,000 use it in Magnolia.

The FM 1488 work would run from Joseph Road, where crews are rebuilding FM 1488 near the Montgomery County Line, to Austin Street in Hempstead — the former route of U.S. 290. The new road would have sidewalks, but also retain open ditches for drainage, while widening shoulders to 10 feet on the edges of the roadway. At most points, FM 1488 would have a grassy median about 40 feet wide.

Already, new gas stations are opening along FM 1488 as subdivisions and for-sale signs spread west from Magnolia. TxDOT officials cite that growth, which many residents along FM 1488 agree is inevitable, and the need for a safer road as the reason for the rebuild. Compared to similar farm-to-market roads in Texas, FM 1488 has a higher rate of crashes, notably at key intersections such as U.S. 290, Austin Street, FM 362 and FM 1098.

The project also removes five 90-degree curves in the road, which pose a problem for the higher speeds and higher traffic volumes TxDOT officials expect in the future. Of the 231 crashes along FM 1488 from 2017 to 2021, 50 occurred at the curves or nearby as drivers struggled to stay in their lanes.

Smoothing the curves, however, comes with concerns for area landowners, many of whom swarmed maps of the proposed new road on Thursday in Field Store — the small community tucked along the road about five miles north of Waller. Cynthia Barton, 68, frowned as she looked at TxDOT’s plan, which shifts FM 1488 toward her, taking out the tree line she cherishes as a buffer between her and the highway.

“If the argument is take out curves, why are they coming entirely on my side?” Barton said, arguing the straighter path would be to keep the road much closer to its current alignment.

Officials urged her to write down her comments, noting the route was not finalized.

“I understand it needs to be widened, it’s not that,” Barton said. “It just needs to be fair. That is going to be an issue for anybody with property on (FM) 1488.”

While many are resigned to the widening, it is not universally welcomed by landowners for a variety of reasons. Lisa and Christian Seger, owners of Blue Heron Farm, where they raise goats for dairy foods, are less impacted than in previous TxDOT plans to widen the road, but said they remain opposed because they believe it will exacerbate suburban sprawl.

“It’s being done to satisfy developers in Montgomery County, just pushing out from Magnolia,” Lisa Seger said.

Whether the road is being widened to handle the development or the development comes because TxDOT widened the road, the effect on Fields Store and surrounding places is going to be the same, she said: More homes, more traffic and more sprawl at a moment when climate change is affecting communities in Texas and beyond and people need to reduce their solo driving, not add to it.

“There are still pulling bodies out of the mud in Kentucky and we’re talking about adding lanes for cars,” Seger said, referring to recent flooding that devastated parts of Appalachia. “It’s just unreal.”

Others note simply the reality of growth coming their way, including Amsler. Not only does he represent northwestern parts of the county, but he has a real estate office along FM 1488 in Precinct Two that will will be just a few feet from the road, if it can stay at all.

“I’m a sixth generation Texan, native Hempsteadian,” Amsler said. “I know it’s happening. I just hate to see it.”