HASLET, Texas — Nestled about 16 miles northwest of Fort Worth, sits Haslet, Texas. A place long known for horses and cattle, a small town people moved to to get out of the city. It’s what Georganne Polizzo and her family did more than two decades ago.
“And we thought we're moving to the country, moved all the way to Haslet and it was great,” Polizzo said.
Back then, it was a quiet, rural escape.
But like much of the Metroplex, Haslet and the surrounding area is now experiencing a boom in population growth.
“The more houses that come, the less calm and country there is,” Polizzo said. “And more traffic.”
Since 2020, the population of Haslet has doubled to around 4,500. Add in the economic growth spilling over from the alliance corridor, and at any given time of the day congestion slows traffic to a crawl.
“Amazon went in and all the big trucks and then we got UPS,” Polizzo said. “I'm all fine about growth and everything, but you put in the neighborhoods before you have the roads and the infrastructure to handle it. And that's a problem.”
One of the biggest problem spots is along U.S. 287. An expansion project to widen the highway and fix frontage roads from Interstate 35W to Avondale-Haslet Road was first introduced in 2019. But five years and many traffic jams later, plans still aren’t solidified.
“If I can't travel a mile or it takes me 20 or 30 minutes, there's something wrong with this picture,” Haslet Mayor Gary Hulsey said. “And that is the difficulty that we have now out here.”
Hulsey says it’s a challenge that so far has no real solutions.
“It's a matter of funding,” he said. “Where’s that funding come from?”
In an email to WFAA, Texas Department of Transportation confirmed they’re still figuring out how to pay for the U.S. 287 project, saying they expect to open bidding for phase one in late 2026 pending funding availability.
“From what I understand now, it's gonna be in the 2030’s before this problem with 287 gets fixed," Polizzo said.
And that means relief is far out and there’s no telling how much more this area will grow by then.