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According to toppharmacyschools.org, State Route 35, commonly known as State Highway 35 or SH 35 is a state route in the US state of Texas. The road connects Corpus Christi to Houston along the Gulf of Mexico and is 233 miles long.

Travel directions

SH 35 just outside of Houston.

SH 35 in Aransas County.

SH 35 begins in downtown Corpus Christi, where Interstate 37 begins and runs to San Antonio. SH 35 heads northeast and is double -numbered in Corpus Christi with US 181. The road here is a 2×3 lane freeway and crosses Nueces Bay via two bridges. It then passes through the suburb of Portland before turning off at Gregory for US 181 to San Antonio and SH 35 continuing east as a freeway for a few more miles. After that the road is a level divided highway to Port Aransas.

The Port Aransas and Rockport region is somewhat urbanized and SH 35 is part freeway, with only two grade separated intersections. Then one crosses the Copano Bay via a bridge and follows sparsely populated prairie area along the Gulf of Mexico. This region is low-lying and there are no places on the route here over a greater distance. One then reaches the town of Port Lavaca, where one crosses the Lavaca Bay. The road continues eastwards to Palacios, but then curves north, continuing inland a little further, passing through Bay City. At Angleton, it crosses SH 288, a freeway from Houston to Freeport. Through traffic to Houston turns off here, and SH 35 then has a somewhat secondary route.

One then reaches Alvin, Houston ‘s southernmost suburb, with a 2×2 bypass at Alvin. Further north, SH 35 runs through the suburb of Pearland, with rather fragmented residential areas in this area. It then crosses the Sam Houston Tollway, after which the road enters a more built-up area and ends south of Downtown Houston on the Gulf Freeway (I-45).

History

The current SH 35 was established in 1938. Originally, this number was assigned to a north-south route from Paris to Houston in East Texas. The northern section was later renumbered as US 59. SH 35 was originally envisioned as the main link from Houston to Corpus Christi, but it never materialized. US 59 was later expanded as a main connection from Houston to the southwest. Between 2011 and 2017, the Copano Bay Bridge was replaced by a wider bridge with 2×2 lanes.

Corpus Christi

Circa 1951 the causeway opened over the Nueces Bay north of Corpus Christi. This was a two lane road. Circa 1960-1961, the Harbor Bridge opened in Corpus Christi at the same time as the freeway through the city center that terminated at the Nueces Bay Causeway. Also then the grade separated intersection in Portland opened, but not the entire route was a freeway yet. In the 1970s, the Nueces Bay Causeway was widened into a 2×2 lane highway. The highway to Portland was also ready by then. The highway further to Gregory was opened in the first half of the 1990s.

Houston

In September 1999, the Spur 5, a possible future connection of SH 35 to the Gulf Freeway in Houston, opened. This is a two-mile highway that empties onto the Gulf Freeway.

Future

Since the 1990s, it had been planned to build the Alvin Freeway, part of SH 35 in the southern suburbs of Houston. A new route is difficult to obtain here, the right-of-way for a freeway is not present. Therefore, a somewhat more western route along Mykawa Road, which connects to Spur 5, has been proposed. There is room for a new highway or toll road along this corridor.

There are no plans to fully develop SH 35 into a freeway because it is not the fastest or shortest route between Corpus Christi and Houston, it runs a little further north via US 77 and US 59.

Traffic intensities

Every day, 47,000 vehicles drive through Downtown Corpus Christi and 44,000 vehicles cross Nueces Bay. This drops to 13,000 vehicles between Gregory and Port Aransas, and about 12,000 vehicles between Port Aransas and Rockport. Further north, some 3,000 vehicles drove to Port Lavaca and 2,000 to 4,000 vehicles to Palacios. Farther north, the intensity rose from 3,000 to 8,000 vehicles at Bay City and 6,000 vehicles at West Columbia. 9,000 to 10,000 vehicles drove up to Angleton and 13,000 vehicles around Alvin. This rises to 20,000 vehicles between Alvin and Pearland and 26,000 vehicles at the Sam Houston Beltway. 18,000 vehicles drove near I-45.

Spur 5 has about 30,000 vehicles per day.