FM 1488 Is Two Road Jobs, Not One. Here's Where Each Stands.

FM 1488 carries most of Magnolia's daily traffic, and most of it has sat under a cone for years. Part of the frustration is a misread. People treat the widening as one endless job when TxDOT is actually running it as two separate contracts, each with its own budget and its own finish line.

The western piece runs from the Waller County line to FM 1774. It widens the road from two lanes to four and adds a continuous center left-turn lane. TxDOT lists it at 98 percent complete, a $35.35 million job paid with state funds, started back in November 2020 and wrapping this quarter. That's the stretch drivers should feel open up first.

The second piece picks up at FM 1774 and runs west to just past FM 149. Same idea, two lanes widened to four with a center turn lane, but it's the newer contract and further from done: 66 percent complete, $48.29 million, started in June 2022 and not scheduled to finish until the last quarter of 2027. So the part of 1488 closest to the heart of town is the part with the longest wait.

There's a third job worth knowing if you drive toward I-45. The Highway 242 widening from I-45 to FM 1488 is 86 percent complete, a $29.11 million project TxDOT expects to finish by the end of this year. Between the three, the corridor's road map changes in a real way over the next 18 months.

Percent-complete figures move, and TxDOT's dates are targets, not promises. We pulled these from the agency's June update. If your commute or your storefront is living through the Segment 2 work, tell us what it's actually like out there.