Plans are in the works for the primary east-west corridor in The Woodlands to be extended into Tomball. Montgomery County is purchasing land tracts west of FM 2978 in order to extend Woodlands Parkway to Hwy. 249.

According to Patty McDaniel of the Montgomery County Attorney's Office, the county needs only to purchase two more parcels of the approximately 40 tracts between FM 2978 and Dobbin-Hufsmith Road to complete all land acquisitions for its part of the project.

Precinct 2 County Commissioner Craig Doyal said the extension of Woodlands Parkway has been on the county's major thoroughfare plan since 1985.

"I just felt like the right-of-way that was in place would never be less expensive and never more available than right now," Doyal said.

There is no time frame on construction of the extension, he said, but the goal rather was to purchase the land ahead of any future developments.

"We're not pressed for time, there's no urgency," Doyal said.

Both he and the county took a similar approach to the extension of the Fish Creek Thoroughfare, which connected FM 1488 to FM 2854.

"Fish Creek was much more easily done because of the right-of-way that was in place as opposed to having to acquire land like [FM] 1488 [expansion]," he said.

McDaniel said the county has been purchasing tracts of land west of FM 2978 for about the past three years in anticipation of the extension. But should the Woodlands Parkway extension ever come to fruition, the county won't be able to complete the project alone, Doyal said.

A large portion of land west of Dobbin-Hufsmith is slated for a housing development, Doyal said, and he is hoping whoever develops the project can also include a portion of the Woodlands Parkway extension.

"What happened on Fish Creek Thoroughfare was that, as Sendera Ranch was developed, the developers donated the right-of-way and built portions of the right-of-way as part of their plan and donated the balance [to the county]," Doyal said. "Then we went in and filled in gaps, built the bridge and we had a major thoroughfare."

According to data compiled by the Montgomery County Precinct 3 Commissioner's Office, an average of more than 67,000 vehicle trips per day were counted in 2011 along Woodlands Parkway.