Northbound at I-10 on the west side of Houston in 2007
Beltway 8 (BW8), the Sam Houston Parkway, along with the Sam Houston Tollway, is an 88-mile (142 km) beltway around the city of Houston, Texas, United States, lying entirely within Harris County.[2]
Beltway 8 is the intermediate beltway in the Houston area. The inner beltway, I-610, lies mostly within Houston (except for an approximate two-mile (3.2 km) stretch that runs through the City of Bellaire), and the outer beltway, SH 99 (Grand Parkway), is currently partially complete.
The longest free section of main lanes is on the north side of Houston, stretching from Ella Boulevard east to Mesa Drive. This is maintained by TxDOT east of roughly the Hardy Toll Road interchange.[3] This particular free section has remained untolled since its 1969 opening because of accessibility to George Bush Intercontinental Airport. It includes the interchanges with I-69/US 59 (Eastex Freeway), John F. Kennedy Boulevard, the Hardy Toll Road, and I-45 (North Freeway).
Three shorter free sections also exist:
North of Wallisville Road to Jacinto Port Boulevard, including the I-10 (Baytown-East Freeway) interchange.
SH 3 (Galveston Road) to Beamer Road, including the I-45 (Gulf Freeway) interchange.
West Airport Boulevard to Beechnut Street, including the I-69/US 59 (Southwest Freeway) interchange.
These all exist in order to allow federal funding to have been used to build the freeway-to-freeway interchanges at the Baytown-East, Gulf and Southwest Freeways.[citation needed]
The frontage roads are generally continuous, and allow for slower free travel along the tolled segments. Only one break exists in the frontage roads; there are also several locations where one must turn to stay on them:
Jacinto Port Boulevard to SH 225—the frontage roads do not cross the Houston Ship Channel (and thus that piece of Beltway 8 was removed in 1978).[1]
Deerwood Drive to Boheme Drive—both directions are on the east side of the tollway for the crossing of Buffalo Bayou.
West Little York Road to US 290 (Northwest Freeway)—both directions shift to the west side, intersecting US 290 at Senate Avenue, northwest of the tollway. The west side shift was eliminated in late 2013 where the frontage road right of way was extended to US 290 as part of the US 290 widening project—the former lanes which shifted to the west side was re-routed to the new frontage roads with a signalized crossing.
At the Katy Freeway, some of the frontage road lanes bypass the intersection, allowing vehicles on the frontage road to travel through the interchange without stopping at traffic lights. The bypass was incorporated into the Katy Freeway reconstruction project to relieve congestion and elevated since a majority of the intersection is below grade level which had a past history of flooding during heavy rains.[4][5]
A section of the frontage road at Mykawa Road shared the right-of-way with the tollway from 1997 to 2016 (which merged into a single lane); with the widening of the tolled lanes between SH 288 and I-45, TxDOT constructed two flyover ramps (completed July 2016) which goes over a railroad right of way with two lanes per direction (this was originally planned back in 1997 until the widening project from the Southwest Freeway to I-10 east revived it). Back in 1997 when the southern portion of the tollway opened up motorists were forced to make a turn onto Mykawa Road and head south to Knapp Road in Pearland where it had an at-grade railroad crossing (the City of Pearland removed the access to the railroad crossing where a section of McHard Road during the mid-2000s a few miles south incorporated a flyover bridge over the existing railroad right-of-way).
Lane configuration
The lane count is for mainlanes only, unless otherwise noted. Starting at the north end of the Sam Houston Ship Channel Bridge, and moving in a clockwise direction, mainlane counts are as follows:
Two lanes each way between I-10 (East Freeway) and SH 225 (includes the Sam Houston Ship Channel Bridge);
Four lanes each way between SH 225 and SH 3 (Galveston Road);
Three lanes each way between SH 3 (Galveston Road) and Beamer Road;
Four lanes each way between Beamer Road and SH 288 (South Freeway)
Four lanes each way between SH 288 (South Freeway) and I-69/US 59 (Southwest Freeway);
Four lanes each way between I-69/US 59 (Southwest Freeway) and US 290 (portions between I-69/US 59 and Westpark Tollway);
Four lanes each way between US 290 and West Road;
Five lanes counterclockwise and four lanes clockwise between West Road and Gessner Road;
Four lanes each way between Gessner Road and I-45;
Three lanes each way between I-45 and JFK Boulevard (construction started in 2012 to add additional lanes to this section);
Four lanes each way between JFK Boulevard and I-69/US 59 (Eastex Freeway); and
Three lanes each way between I-69/US 59 (Eastex Freeway) and I-10 (East Freeway).
