The Magnolia Relief Route, for which construction is anticipated to begin in March 2024, will cost around $150 million-$200 million, Montgomery County Precinct 2 Commissioner Charlie Riley said in a Nov. 9 interview.

“We’ve told people in the past, ‘We’re going to build a $35 million to $40 million road.’ But that was a two-lane road with a two-lane overpass. That’s all changed,” Riley said. “Everything [is] four lanes with turn lanes, shoulders, concrete. It’s all changed.”

In a nutshell

The Magnolia Relief Route is a proposed four-lane road that will span around the city of Magnolia from Hwy. 249 to FM 1488, Community Impact previously reported.

The Texas Department of Transportation is still in the process of purchasing right of way for the project, Riley said.

Riley also said TxDOT will fund the construction.

“We pay for the engineering, the design, the schematics and the environmental,” Riley said. “TxDOT’s buying the right of way and funding the construction."

What else?

Once construction begins on the road, Riley said it’s expected to last around 24-36 months.

“Hopefully it doesn’t take 24-36 months,” Riley said. “But you just never know. We’ve got another railroad we have to cross with another overpass and [FM] 1774 we’ve got to cross with an overpass. To build a four-lane overpass over a road and a railroad track at the same time, that’s almost two years just to make that happen. So that’s not an easy job.”

View a map of the project below. The map of the Magnolia Relief Route is an estimated route and does not reflect the final path of the road.