Construction on the southwest portion of Nichols Sawmill Road is nearly complete after crews began widening lanes and adding shoulders to the roadway in late March, Montgomery County Precinct 2 Commissioner Charlie Riley said. "Several years back, we took Nichols Sawmill Road from FM 1774 out to Butera Road and we widened the lanes by a foot and put 3-foot shoulders on it," he said. "At the time, that was where all the development was. Most of the development stopped at Butera [Road]. But now with all the growth and all the people moving out here—and the people finding all the back roads—that’s created a need to try to improve Nichols Sawmill Road.” Riley said improvements to Nichols Sawmill Road are best done in phases—particularly as the start of construction on a new north-south corridor, Grand Pines Drive, is pending. He said he believes Grand Pines Drive—which would create a new pathway from Nichols Sawmill Road south to Sanders Cemetery Road at Spring Creek—will relieve congestion on the southern portion of Nichols Sawmill Road. “People are going to want to know why you don’t just go out there and make it five lanes and be done with it," he said. "There’s too many things that could happen in the next 10 years... There could be another east-west road somewhere [or] there could be another road north-south somewhere." Funded by the 2015 Montgomery County road bond referendum, the $1.7 million project includes adding one foot to each lane, adding shoulders on either side of the roadway and overlaying Nichols Sawmill Road from Butera Road to the Waller-Montgomery county line, Riley said. "It gives you a little bit of a buffer to get off the road if something's going on," he said. Drivers may experience travel delays as construction continues.