Texas Department of Transportation continues road improvements along FM 1960. One project has been completed and work is underway on another.

Work is proceeding on a 7-mile TxDOT pavement marking project between I-45 and the FM 1960 Bypass in Humble and will be completed in mid- to late 2017, TxDOT Public Information Officer Danny Perez said.

TxDOT completed pavement markings on FM 1960 from Hwy. 290 to Hwy. 249 in January, Perez said. The pavement improvements include restriping roads and adding grooves to the sides of the roadway, Perez said.

Meanwhile, a project to add turn lanes on FM 1960 between Hwy. 249 and Cutten Road is in the planning stages and will go out for bid in 2018, he said.

The proposed $16.3 million project includes constructing additional left-turn lanes on FM 1960 at Cutten Road, Willow Center, Breton Ridge Street and the Willowbrook Mall entrance.

“These improvements are not just to improve mobility but to improve safety and minimize conflict points,” Perez said.

Motorists on FM 1960 face traffic from Willowbrook Mall and other shopping centers in the area, a railroad crossing and traffic merging from Hwy. 249.

“Traffic is just going to increase on roadways with more development,” Perez said.

Additional turn lanes are meant to prevent vehicles from crossing into oncoming traffic or making inappropriate lane changes, he said.

According to traffic counts conducted by TxDOT between 1999 and 2015, the annual average daily traffic on FM 1960 has increased from about 40,000 to 47,500 vehicles during that time period. It peaked in 2011 at about 57,000 vehicles and has decreased in the past five years.

Perez said the recent decrease in traffic may be due to increased usage of Beltway 8 and the Grand Parkway.

A 2004 planning study performed by H-GAC and TxDOT examined options to improve travel and safety on FM 1960. As a result of the study, Perez said TxDOT has focused on access management, which includes placing medians to limit the number of points along the roadway where vehicles can turn, cutting down the number of potential accident sites.

“[Access management] improves mobility and safety,” Perez said. “If there’s an accident, it does a better job of keeping that vehicle from going onto the other side of the roadway.”

Future work on FM 1960 could include improving connectivity between roads on either side of the corridor to reduce reliance on the thoroughfare, said Alan Clark, the Houston-Galveston Area Council director of transportation.

“In the future, instead of considering more expansion of road space, [we must] make more use of what we have,” Clark said.

Tom Lambert, CEO of the Metropolitan Transit Authority of Harris County, said the FM 1960 corridor would benefit from better access to bus service and commuter rail.

“There’s no way we’re going to build our way out of congestion,” Lambert said. “How we look at things going forward is important.”