You Can No Longer Turn Onto Melton From Buddy Riley. The Detour Went In Two Days Before School.
By The Magnolia Standard · August 14, 2026
If your morning runs through the middle of town, this is the week it changed. Here is the new route, in one paragraph, and the one thing the city has not said yet.
Since Monday, August 10, drivers on Buddy Riley Boulevard have not been able to turn either direction onto Melton Street. No left, no right. Traffic that used to make that turn is being sent to Acker Street and North Sixth Street instead. The city issued the notice on August 7 and the change took effect the following Monday, two days before Magnolia ISD started classes on August 12.
That timing is the whole point. The city said the change is meant to improve traffic flow and safety ahead of the school year, and it asked residents to plan ahead, leave extra time and use caution through the area.
Where this sits matters, because it is not a back road. Buddy Riley Boulevard carries city hall. Melton Street is the older north-south street through the original part of town, the one this paper wrote about in Issue 24 when we tracked down how close Magnolia came to being named Melton instead, and the one where the county's community building sits at 422. If you live in Old Magnolia and drive into the middle of town, you have almost certainly made this turn without thinking about it.
Now you go around. Acker and North Sixth are the marked detour.
What the city has not said is when it ends. The August 7 notice gave a start date and no finish date, and we have not seen one published since. That matters more than it sounds like it does, because a turn restriction that lasts three weeks is an inconvenience and one that lasts through the fall is a change in how a neighborhood drives. Parents doing school pickup are the ones who will feel the difference first.
If you need the current status, the city posts notices and council agendas on its website, and public comment is open at council meetings. If you learn the end date before we do, tell us and we will publish it.
One practical note for the next two weeks. School traffic in the first month always settles into a pattern that is different from the first day, and a detour laid in two days before the bell means nobody has a routine yet. Leave earlier than you think you need to, and give the crossing guards room.
Sources: Community Impact's August 10, 2026 report on the detour, for the August 10 start date, the Melton Street and Buddy Riley Boulevard location, the Acker Street and North Sixth Street detour route, the restriction on left and right turns onto Melton from Buddy Riley, the City of Magnolia's August 7 notice, the stated purpose of improving traffic flow and safety, the city's request that drivers plan ahead and use caution, and the August 12 start of the school year. No end date for the detour was included in the city's notice or in subsequent reporting we could locate. The 422 Melton Street address for the county community building is from Montgomery County Precinct 2, as reported in our Issue 26. Road and closure corrections to newsroom@themagnoliastandard.news.