Travel time update for the far flung suburbs (Dallas, Frisco: house, to buy)

[Katana49]

As a long time NTX resident, I've got a pretty good idea on how long it takes to get somewhere, but many new residents do not. At any rate, I thought I would post an update since I no longer regularly deal with rush hour traffic and the last time I did was about 5 years ago before the housing boom kicked into full swing.


Today I had to travel for work, so from my home in Gentle Creek in Prosper, I left at 7:15am for my 10am flight. I made it through the toll gantry at DFW Airport at 8:03am, so a total time of 48 minutes.


I honestly expected it to be worse. At best, I could go 80mph in some areas, at worst, I was at a stand still and stop and go traffic for long stretches. This is a distance of 35 miles, taking the DNT and 121 (or SRT as a newbie might know it.)


Obviously, weather was good today, and there were no major accidents on my route. (There was one accident before I ever got on the DNT from 380, causing me to skip the exit for the DNT, go west for about a mile, then do a U-turn.) So possibly I could have cut 5 minutes from that time if I hadn't had that to deal with.


Just thought I'd give people considering moving to Prosper, north Frisco, Celina, etc, an idea of what kind of commute they might face for travel if they choose to buy a house out here.

[TurtleCreek80]

Also keep in mind it’s July. No school zones. And this is a prime vacation week because of July 4th falling on a Thursday this year. I would say about 20-25% of our office is on vacation this week. So YMMV during the school year.

[CollieMan]

Yeah. School being out makes a big difference for sure, well “big” might have been 15-20 minutes in this case.

[EcoDeb]

Try on a Monday with school in session.

[RJ312]

Originally Posted by CollieMan

Yeah. School being out makes a big difference for sure, well “big” might have been 15-20 minutes in this case.

This has been a mystery to me for years. Households with children under 18 represent a diminishing percentage of the population.

[CollieMan]

Originally Posted by RJ312

This has been a mystery to me for years. Households with children under 18 represent a diminishing percentage of the population.

Not in the suburbs.

[RJ312]

Originally Posted by CollieMan

Not in the suburbs.

My comment was general in nature. I notice reduced traffic when school is out even within Dallas city limits.

Where are the Baby Boomers and early Generation X'ers living who went to the suburbs in the past and all their kids are now over 18? This part of the population has to live somewhere.

[CollieMan]

They’re still around, but what was a “suburb” back then isn’t really a suburb anymore.

And people, even grown adults, still take summer vacations. It doesn’t take much to reduce the bottlenecks in spots and make traffic flow far better.

[TurtleCreek80]

Originally Posted by RJ312

This has been a mystery to me for years. Households with children under 18 represent a diminishing percentage of the population.

It’s not really a mystery. When school is out, the traffic gets spread out. Working parents might leave the house anywhere from 5:30AM-9:00AM. All the workers who have school year schedules (teachers, nurses, admin, cafeteria staff, etc) might not be working at all when school’s out, further reducing the rush hour car count.

Even if it’s a declining number of households, compressing all the parents who do school drop-off to be on the roads heavily between 7-8AM vs 5:30-9AM (or not at all) during school breaks is a significant traffic pattern shift.

[stephwin]

Originally Posted by TurtleCreek80

It’s not really a mystery. When school is out, the traffic gets spread out. Working parents might leave the house anywhere from 5:30AM-9:00AM. All the workers who have school year schedules (teachers, nurses, admin, cafeteria staff, etc) might not be working at all when school’s out, further reducing the rush hour car count.

Even if it’s a declining number of households, compressing all the parents who do school drop-off to be on the roads heavily between 7-8AM vs 5:30-9AM (or not at all) during school breaks is a significant traffic pattern shift.

You also have to keep school zones in mind. Even if there are the same number of cars on the road, going 20 mph for a 100 yards or so will slow things down too. Some cities (Frisco) looove putting school zones on major roads (Legacy, Eldorado, etc.). On my old commute from Teel/Eldorado to Legacy/DNT, I went through three separate school zones. Two of those had crossing guards which further disrupted traffic flow.