State Highway NASA Road 1 (also NASA Parkway and NASA Road 1) is an east–west state highway that runs from
Interstate 45 (I-45) in
Webster
Webster may refer to:
People
*Webster (surname), including a list of people with the surname
*Webster (given name), including a list of people with the given name
Places Canada
*Webster, Alberta
*Webster's Falls, Hamilton, Ontario
United State ...
to
State Highway 146/
future State Highway 99 (SH 146/future SH 99) in
Seabrook. The highway is a six- to eight-lane
divided highway for most of its length. A portion of the road is a four-lane controlled-access highway that bypasses the central businesses of Webster. The highway is the main route to
NASA's
Lyndon B. Johnson Space Center
The Lyndon B. Johnson Space Center (JSC) is NASA's center for human spaceflight (originally named the Manned Spacecraft Center), where human spaceflight training, research, and flight control are conducted. It was renamed in honor of the late U ...
. It is one of only two Texas state highways with an official designation beginning with a letter; the other is
SH OSR.
History
The highway was originally designated as
Farm to Market Road 528
A farm (also called an agricultural holding) is an area of land that is devoted primarily to agricultural processes with the primary objective of producing food and other crops; it is the basic facility in food production. The name is used fo ...
(FM 528) in 1945,
but upon the opening of Johnson Space Center, the portion of FM 528 from I-45 to SH 146 was redesignated as NASA Road 1.
Route description
NASA Road 1 begins at I-45 in Webster and heads towards the northeast through Webster intersecting
SH 3 and
FM 270. The highway passes along the southern boundary of the Johnson Space Center and provides access to the center. The highway follows the north shore of
Clear Lake and ends at
SH 146/future
SH 99 in Seabrook.
NASA 1 Bypass Freeway is a freeway that passes to the south of Webster. It is long and has four lanes. The contract for construction was awarded in 2004 and it opened in December 2008. The freeway consists of two direct access ramps which are convenient for travelers coming to and from Houston. One of these ramps provides southbound travelers from I-45 with direct access to the bypass (flying over I-45 in a three-tier stack configuration), and the other provides travelers with the opportunity to merge onto I-45 northbound without encountering any traffic signals. Motorists coming from Galveston (I-45 northbound) have to encounter a traffic signal at Kobayashi Road before experiencing the uninterrupted flow of the freeway. The freeway bypasses much of the congestion in inner-city Webster, giving easy access to Johnson Space Center.
Major junctions
References
External links
*
*{{cite web , url = http://www.houstonfreeways.com/modern/2005-05-07_nasa1.aspx , title = NASA 1 bypass , first = Erik , last = Slotboom , work = Houston Freeways
NASA Road 1
State Highway NASA Road 1 (also NASA Parkway and NASA Road 1) is an east–west state highway that runs from Interstate 45 (I-45) in Webster to State Highway 146/ future State Highway 99 (SH 146/future SH 99) in Seabrook. Th ...
Johnson Space Center
Transportation in Harris County, Texas