The Hardy Toll Road runs from Interstate 610, near central Houston, to Interstate 45, north of Houston just below the Harris County line. The road generally parallels Interstate 45. The portion from I-610 to Crosstimbers Road is known as Spur 548, although this is unsigned.
Construction on the toll road started in September 1984 and the entire road was complete by June 1988. The toll road runs 21.6 miles (34.8 km) and costs $3.50 to drive its full length ($1.75 north of Beltway 8 and $1.75 south of Beltway 8). A four-mile (6 km) connecting road to the George Bush Intercontinental Airport requires $1.00 toll. At Hardy North and South toll booths, a 20 cent discount applies to electronic EZ TAG users.
The road is named for nearby Hardy Street, which makes up the frontage roads for the toll road in two locations: (1) between Spring Railroad Yard and FM 1960 and (2) Greens Road to Crosstimbers Road. Houstonians sometimes affectionately refer to the Hardy Toll Road as the Laurel and Hardy Toll Road.
A large portion of the southern segment resembles Austin's Mopac Expressway in that an active line of the Union Pacific railroad runs along its median. Like other toll roads in the Houston area, the speed limit is 65 mph (105 km/h), even inside Beltway 8.
Read more about Hardy Toll Road: Lane Count, Exit List
Famous quotes containing the words hardy, toll and/or road:
“The instincts of merry England lingered on here with exceptional vitality, and the symbolic customs which tradition has attached to each season of the year were yet a reality on Egdon. Indeed, the impulses of all such outlandish hamlets are pagan still: in these spots homage to nature, self-adoration, frantic gaieties, fragments of Teutonic rites to divinities whose names are forgotten, seem in some way or other to have survived mediaeval doctrine.”
—Thomas Hardy (1840–1928)
“one is in a shoe factory cursing the machine,
one is at the aquarium tending a seal,
one is dull at the wheel of her Ford,
one is at the toll gate collecting,
one is tying the cord of a calf in Arizona,
one is straddling a cello in Russia....”
—Anne Sexton (1928–1974)
“There is a road that turning always
Cuts off the country of Again.
Archers stand there on every side
And as it runs time’s deer is slain,
And lies where it has lain.”
—Edwin Muir (1887–1959)