After completing the SH 288 Corridor Feasibility Study in 2005, TxDOT concluded that its traditional funding sources including fuel taxes and other taxes and fees would be insufficient to cover the cost of the SH 288 project, given the burgeoning need for capital improvements across the state. However, the state recognized that it could help fill this funding gap with toll revenues and that the private sector could potentially finance and implement the project. By pursuing this approach, TxDOT hoped that more of the ultimate SH 288 configuration could be built as part of the interim project.
Enhancements to Texas transportation law enacted in the early 2000s introduced new project financing and delivery options, including the ability for TxDOT to engage the private sector to finance, design, construct, operate, and maintain toll road projects on a P3 basis. This approach would allow final design and construction to take place concurrently and provide access to private sector financing that could help accelerate the implementation of projects. It would also provide funding for long-term operations and maintenance.
Texas law governing P3s evolved throughout the 2000s, and some of the broad permissions for P3 project development granted under earlier legislation were curtailed. Legislation enacted in 2011 made a number of reforms to TxDOT and, because P3 concession projects must now be explicitly named in statute, authorized the SH 288 project to be developed on a design-build-finance-operate-maintain basis.
Texas transportation law also grants local toll authorities (at the county or regional level) a first right of refusal guarantee ("primacy") to build a toll project before TxDOT can. This provision protects local control over transportation planning and investment decisions for projects that involve toll collection. In April 2012, Harris County agreed to cede its right to develop the SH 288 project to TxDOT. This agreement applied to the 10.3 miles of the project corridor in Harris County and included a commitment for TxDOT to implement several other road improvement projects in the county, including the direct connector to the Texas Medical Center. That same month, the Texas Transportation Commission, which oversees TxDOT, granted its permission for the department to begin seeking private sector firms to deliver the SH 288 project in Harris County.
For the remaining portion of the interim project in Brazoria County (now defined as from the county line to CR 58, two miles north of SH 6), Brazoria County has exercised its right to develop the project and will do so on a traditional design-bid-build basis. Under this project delivery model, separate firms will complete the project's final design and undertake its construction. The Brazoria County Toll Road Authority will finance the project and be responsible for ongoing operations and maintenance.