Waller County’s rapid growth – as the second-fastest growing county in the nation – is driving the need for critical transportation infrastructure, Waller County Judge Elect Justin Beckendorff told attendees at the Highway 36A Coalition’s September 22 luncheon. The event took place at the Embassy Suites by Hilton Energy Corridor at 11730 Katy Freeway in Houston with a near-capacity crowd of elected officials, engineers and others.

The county now has 80,000 residents and that population is expected to double, Beckendorff said, with an additional 80,000 residential lots already in development.

But the county’s transportation system is currently far from ready to handle the influx of new traffic, Beckendorff said. There are no four-lane county roads and no four-lane FM roads in the county; the only four-lane roads are Highway 290 and Interstate 10. The major north-south roads now in existence – FM 359 and FM 362 – both have 90-degree angles and pass through flood plains, making them undesirable for increased truck traffic. Railroad crossings in Brookshire also complicate traffic issues; Beckendorff described a recent incident where the crossing was closed and motorists had to detour back through Katy in order to go north.

The development of Highway 36A will not only relieve local congestion in his county but will provide a corridor for freight movement from Port Freeport north to the Dallas-Fort Worth area, Beckendorff said.

The proposed highway will also serve as an important evacuation route during hurricanes and storms, he said. “When there's a hurricane coming down Galveston, nobody's going east or south,” Beckendorff said. “They're all coming north and west.”

The Highway 36A project is still in development, with five proposed routes through Waller County. Those alternatives will be narrowed in 2027 following the completion of the environmental impact statement. In Waller County public opposition to the project has been strong, with more than 900 comments were received following public meetings in Katy and Rosenberg, according to Greg Parent of Jacobs Engineering, who is working on the Highway 36A South environmental impact statement. More than 90 percent of the comments were in opposition to the project, Parent said. Beckendorff said that the negative comments are to be expected, that few people call to praise the repair of a pothole.

The Highway 36A project also remains unfunded at this time, Beckendorff said, and it will require both state and federal funding before it can become a reality. He urged business leaders and area residents to contact their elected officials to support transportation funding.