HASLET, Texas — Residents in Haslet will tell you at any point of the day traffic along FM156 slows to a trickle.
“It's pretty frustrating,” said Chris Carathers. “Sometimes I take my kids to school and it should be a 20-minute round trip and it takes me over an hour.”
Carathers sees it daily - a mix of cars, trucks, buses, and 18-wheelers cramped in stop-and-go traffic at the entrance to his neighborhood.
“A lot of people don't know that the section going south is 55 miles an hour, but rarely do you even get to those speeds because there's so much traffic,” Carathers said.
The two-way road runs through the city from Texas State Highway 114 to US287. The congestion is a recent issue caused by a mix of new subdivisions attracting thousands, like Carathers, to the once-rural area, and the Intermodal Center about halfway down the roughly 9-mile stretch.
“I think some people still look at Haslet as a country town out in the middle of nowhere,” Carathers said. “But it just isn't anymore.”
Haslet’s population has doubled to around 4,500 residents in the last five years and is still growing. So is the surrounding area, and those folks drive through the city too.
“All of the infrastructure is just really behind all the population growth,” Carathers said.
Haslet Mayor Gary Hulsey says they’ve explored plans to expand FM156 to four or even six lanes, but the issue is finding money to fund it. He says they proposed a bond but ultimately, it didn’t make it on the ballot.
“It was $55 million,” Hulsey said. “It would have doubled our ad valor tax, our property tax. And that's just not good at all.”
The project is now in limbo.
“Hopefully they'll get it put back on and we can maybe get this thing moving,” Carathers said.
So that those who drive in the area can get some relief.