“We’ve needed [the road] for quite some time and it is going to be great when it eventually goes all the way to Pearland; League City is coming,” Foreman said. “They’re fast on the heels of us, finishing their engineering work.”
The plan is for the thoroughfare to eventually connect from Hwy. 146 in Kemah all the way to Beltway 8 through Pearland and Friendswood, Galveston County Commissioner Ken Clark said.
“Hopefully real soon we’ll be connecting up to Pearland Parkway because, as many of you know, the drive up FM 518 and the intersection at [FM] 528, traffic is getting worse by the day and we need this road to go through,” Foreman said.
The project involved designing a four-lane road that connects Friendswood Lakes Boulevard to West Boulevard and Stoney Lake Drive, and it also installed 5,100 feet of pavement along with 1,400 feet of new storm sewer line, Foreman said.
The funding for the project came from both Galveston County and Friendswood, City Manager Morad Kabiri said.
“The city of Friendswood made a proposal to Galveston County that if they would give another $1 million worth of matching dollars that the city of Friendswood would put $1 million ourselves to bring the total funding to $5.5 million, so Galveston County put up $4.5 million [and the] city of Friendswood put in $1 million in this project,” Kabiri said.
Multiple alternative routes for travel are desperately needed to alleviate traffic along FM 518, which also connects League City to Pearland through Friendswood, he added.
“Ultimately, though, this project is one piece of a multiphase project ... so what we just completed was monumental but the next phase from [FM] 528 to [FM] 2351 is also needed,” Kabiri said. “We do not have a funding source just yet for that and that’ll be another long-term endeavor on the part of the city.”
