The long-awaited road construction to widen El Dorado Boulevard is in the home stretch.
When finished, the project will have widened El Dorado Boulevard from two lanes to four from Horsepen Bayou to Clear Lake City Boulevard, with another two-lane bridge across that bayou and a hike-and-bike trail running alongside the whole length.
Traffic along that stretch has increased steadily over the years due to new home construction and also because of the Clear Lake Marketplace at the corner of El Dorado and Clear Lake City boulevards.
The project was initially expected to wrap up by the end of July, but several factors along the way have pushed the timetable back.
“Delays were caused by utility conflicts at the beginning of the project,” Harris County Precinct 2 spokesperson Scott Spiegel said. “However, the project is within its contract time frame, and most paving work should be done by the beginning of October.”
Once that is done, the second phase of the project, which involves stormwater detention, will begin.
The $9.69 million project is a joint operation between Harris County Precinct 2 and the city of Houston.
The project’s cost breaks down to $6.4 million for the roadway and $3.29 million for stormwater and utility relocations.
“The current estimate is that Phase 2 will be completed in the second quarter of 2022, weather and other factors dependent,” Spiegel said.
The roadway’s four lanes will be separated by a 17-foot median. The original plan was to put a swale there to handle runoff.
A swale is similar to a ditch except it is wider and usually covered with grass. Both channel water.
But community input led project leaders to pivot and revert to a plan that would use in-ground stormwater instead, thus extending the construction timeline.