The city this summer completed another project along this corridor, and it is the last major project scheduled for Calder—for now.
Around 2012, League City was in the design process to reconstruct Calder, City Manager John Baumgartner said. By February 2019, the road between League City Parkway and Ervin Street had been remade with concrete and widened to three lanes.
The work was not as simple as merely widening the road. Several other projects were conjoined with this one, Baumgartner said.
This portion of Calder included a new pump station, a water line and a sewer line that all needed to be installed. The work forced Calder to have only one lane open at a time for nearly two years, officials said.
After those four projects concluded by February 2019, League City in fall 2019 got to work on widening another section of Calder from Ervin to Cross Colony Drive. This time, lessons learned from the previous project resulted in two lanes of traffic remaining open throughout construction, Baumgartner said.
Additionally, the southern portion featured fewer conflicts, such as driveways, and officials worked on acquiring right-of-ways, relocating utilities and other requirements before construction began, speeding up the process, Baumgartner said.
“You always learn from the projects like North Calder,” Executive Director of Capital Projects Ron Bavarian said.
The road opened in early 2022 and reached substantial completion in July. In total, all the Calder Road projects cost about $41.9 million.
Before, Calder was a deteriorating road of patches on top of patches. Designed as a rural road, it could not keep up with the traffic demands as suburban neighborhoods sprung up around it, Baumgartner said.
“It was well past time to replace it when we started,” he said.
Today, Calder more efficiently handles traffic and drainage. The shared center turn lane and intersection improvements along allow for more traffic, Bavarian said.
Still, it is not perfect. League City officials will consider another project to further improve the road.
Calder has a small crook in it where it intersects with Colony Ridge Lane. Officials are considering installing a roundabout at that intersection to improve the traffic flow. A timeline or cost have not yet been discussed.
Additionally, the Texas Department of Transportation plans before the end of the year to begin installing traffic signals at Calder Road and FM 517 to improve flow, and League City may add dedicated turn lanes in the area, Baumgartner said.
Ongoing projects
Grissom Road reconstruction
About 5,600 feet of the existing two-lane Grissom Road from Abigail Lane to the West NASA Road bridge will be replaced with a four-lane divided concrete roadway with sidewalks. Since construction began in April, crews have most of the storm sewer pipes for the project, and CenterPoint Energy has begun running new power wires to transfer service.
Timeline: April 2022-April 2023
Cost: $8.53 million
Funding source: League City
Upcoming projects
Hwy. 3 and League City Parkway intersection improvements
Officials plan to add additional turn lanes to improve the traffic flow at the intersection of Hwy. 3 and League City Parkway. The design is complete and was approved by the Texas Department of Transportation, and the project will go to bid this summer.
Timeline: late 2022-spring 2023
Cost: $1.4 million
Funding sources: League City, Galveston County
