Westpark Tollroad General Engineering Consultant (GEC)

Fort Bend County is outgrowing its capacity to handle traffic throughout the county. This is largely due to the migration of homeowners from the City of Houston to the western suburbs that include Fort Bend County. The Harris County Toll Road Authority (HCTRA) and the Fort Bend County Toll Road Authority (FBCTRA) have combined to design and construct the Westpark Tollway. In Harris County the facility runs along the current alignment of Westpark Boulevard, from which the facility gets its name.  The tollway then continues for six miles, following FM 1093 (Westheimer Road) in Fort Bend County. The Westpark Tollway will allow residents of Fort Bend County better access, to and from, Houston’s Uptown area, including the Galleria. It is planned that the corridor will also serve as a relief route during the reconstruction of IH 10 in the coming months.

The Texas Department of Transportation (TxDOT) will be concurrently upgrading this section of FM 1093. TxDOT’s construction will convert their two-lane facility into a four-lane divided roadway. Their eastbound lanes will ultimately become the westbound lanes of the tollway. The FBCTRA project will build the eastbound tollway mainlanes and the eastbound frontage road, which will become eastbound FM 1093. Due to delays in TxDOT’s construction, the projects will be built simultaneously, resulting in extensive coordination efforts in design and construction.

The FBCTRA selected the Brown & Gay (BGE)/PBS&J team due to BGE’s local knowledge and PBS&J’s general engineering consultant (GEC) and program management experience. Scheduling and project controls have been issues for FBCTRA on other projects in the past. PBS&J’s ability to develop, maintain and forecast program activities was a key to the team selection. PBS&J’s ability to track, report, and forecast project costs was also essential.

The main benefit to the client will be the opening of their facility on time to allow tolls collection to begin. The design is currently about 90-percent complete.  Right-of-way acquisition, environmental approval, and utility relocation issues are being finalized.