FortBendNow.com

Within two weeks, Harris County Judge Ed Emmett is expected to call a meeting with six of his counterparts, including Fort Bend County Judge Bob Hebert, to make some big decisions about the Grand Parkway.

At the top of the list is the decision on whether to develop the controversial and expensive superhighway loop around the fringes of greater Houston in the first place – or whether to leave it in the hands of the Texas Department of Transportation.

But, driven by an apparent strong desire for the project by Harris County officials, developers and major landowners in Fort Bend and elsewhere along the project path (and fearing that TxDOT will transform the project into something unpalatable if they don’t act), it appears likely the group of seven counties will shoulder the Grand Parkway’s development.

Assuming that decision is made at the Emmett summit, other major issues on the judges’ meeting agenda will include how the group of counties organizes itself to build the project also known as State Highway 99, whether it is paid for publicly or privately, how capital, maintenance and operating costs are financed and how any potential surplus revenue is shared.

“If we decide to proceed, we will need to advise TxDOT and others of our conclusion and promptly begin work,” Emmett said in a Feb. 3 letter made public Tuesday.

Two of Fort Bend’s five Commissioners Court members have expressed unhappiness with the process that has led to the county judges’ meeting, and the seeming inevitability of development of the county’s portion of the Grand Parkway as a tollway.

Precinct 3 Commissioner Andy Meyers believes Fort Bend has ceded control of the project to Harris County, because part of a complex agreement approved in a split court vote on Tuesday gives Harris County the right to set toll rates and decide when to raise them, for the entire project.

Meyers also is unhappy because he thinks his constituents will end up footing the bill, through high toll fees, to build at least the next several segments of the parkway.

Segment D of the parkway – the only segment now built – runs from U.S. 59 north to Interstate 10 – most of it through Meyers’ precinct.

Even as other segments are opened to motorists, those segments go through land that’s not nearly as heavily populated as the neighborhoods surrounding Segment D, Meyers said.

“My complaint is, I don’t want my constituents paying tolls to build roads for Liberty and Chambers counties,” he added.

Precinct 1 Commissioner Richard Morrison has a problem with Segment C in general. “C doesn’t need to be built,” Morrison said on Wednesday. “There’s no need for it.”

Meanwhile, Precinct 4 Commissioner James Patterson, chairman of the Houston-Galveston Area Council’s Transportation and Policy committee, has participated in many of the meetings that led to current plans for the Grand Parkway.

He indicated Wednesday he understands Meyers’ and Morrison’s concerns, but believes they’re in part unfounded.

“The problem that Commissioner Morrison and Commissioner Meyers weren’t understanding is, we didn’t commit to anything yesterday,” Patterson said. Each of the other six regional commissioners courts will be presented with agreements similar to the one Fort Bend passed on Tuesday, and if the others also approve their agreements, “now you’ve got six months to decide whether to develop the project and in what manner.”

So, Patterson added, no decision to develop the parkway locally – among the local counties instead of by TxDOT – has yet been made.

But that decision likely will come from Emmett’s meeting of the county judges, which Patterson said probably will be scheduled within two weeks.

Patterson also acknowledged that however the Grand Parkway is developed, the route for the controversial Segment C has been set. Instersection-by-intersection details of the segment were laid out as part of the document Commissioners Court approved Tuesday.

“You want the route to be established” as soon as is practical, Patterson said. One reason is to set people’s expectations realistically. Another is so that individuals, businesses and developers know approximately where a major project will go, and can thus avoid developing right in its path.

Patterson said that didn’t happen in northwest Harris County, and relatively new developments have recently been built in or near the path of Segment E, which Harris officials are actively pursuing.

As for the path of Segment C, a portion of it will bisect land controlled by the George Foundation, part of historical George Ranch south of Richmond.

While Hebert has suggested Segment C might night be built for 20 years, both Meyers and Patterson said it could be constructed much sooner than that.

If the George Foundation should decide to break with tradition and develop land made valuable by its proximity to the Grand Parkway, development of Segment C might be “fairly quick,” Patterson said.

He added that he understands Morrison’s concerns about that segment, which stem from the fact many of his constituents are against it.

“He got elected telling people ‘I’m going to fight that sucker,’” Patterson said. “I don’t have a problem with that.”

As long as Morrison doesn’t try to prevent such things as a Grand Parkway overpass at U.S. 90A, Patterson added, where commuter traffic backs up daily.

Patterson said he has friends in Greatwood who, like some of Morrison’s constituents, expressed concerns about the Grand Parkway going past their neighborhood.

The commissioner said he asked them to take a drive with him, so he could show them what was wrong with the Grand Parkway north of there, on Segment D in the Cinco Ranch area.

When they arrived at Cinco Ranch, one of his friends told Patterson he didn’t see anything wrong with the parkway in that area at all.

“Exactly,” Patterson said. “Plan on Segment C to look just like that. And demand it. I don’t have a problem with them demanding it.”