Infrastructure - Austin vs. Houston vs. Dallas vs. San Antonio (Fort Worth: live in, light rail)

[Logicist027]

So Texas is known for its massive growth rates. However I have been hearing complaints (especially from Austin) about the infrastructure being too far behind to keep up.

So here is the question - which of the large Texas cities is doing the best in terms of keeping up with infrastructure? You can compare streets, traffic, public transportation, Water/Sewer, Garbage/recycling whatever.

[Sunderpig2]

Austin's definitely the worse. I'd think the other three would be fairly similar, but I haven't been to Dallas or SA lately.

This is a big enough beast of a topic, involving four major cities. It's probably better to just focus on one area for comparison. Mobility in the form of freeways and personal vehicle use is usually the biggest matter, and the one that affects most people. A lot of people could care less about public transportation and recycling. Water/sewer might be hard to compare unless one is in the waterworks industry.

I wouldn't get carried away with any criticisms about infrastructure and "keeping up" when it comes to Texas. I (foolishly) moved away, and now live in a completely backwards and dysfunctional state as far as keeping up with infrastructure. I'll never say anything bad about Texas again. LOL

[Taynxtlvl]

This is actually a decent topic. Ive visited Austin and Houston and live in Dallas. I'm wondering where San Antonio falls in the mix. Dallas and Fort Worth. Have some of the best planned highways I've ever since with the exception of some of the cities in California. Plus a decent light rail network.


I suspect Houston is right behind if not a tie because of all the water concerns there.


Austin is playing catchup big time

[rynetwo]

San Antonio has way less time spent in traffic even though we have 380,000 more people than Austin. I'd say San Antonio compares favorably to Dallas and Houston.

[TrapperL]

San Antonio absolutely sucks and is getting as bad a Austin. Houston and Dallas are far better off. If you live on the westside of SA, it can take hours just to go a few miles. The wife drives 12 miles from the Seaworld area to IH10 and DeZavala and it's an hour and a half at 6AM. The northside is worse yet around the 1604 area from O'Conner to Bandera Rd. Forget Lp410 in rush hour as yer not going anywhere. I had a church remodel I did at IH10 and Wurzbach. If I didn't get out of there by 4pm sharp it was a 2 hour trip to get home. Even the southside is getting slammed and no, our wonderful morons downtown have nothing working except to argue about changing roads we already paid for into toll roads. Potranco Road at any time of day or night is bumper to bumper. Hwy 151 is mostly stop during rush hour. Unless you're not going far and have a good bicycle, it's a good idea to bring food and water. And then when they do finally decide to improve the roads, it takes years if not decades for them to finish them.

[TXEX06]

Originally Posted by TrapperL

San Antonio absolutely sucks and is getting as bad a Austin. Houston and Dallas are far better off. If you live on the westside of SA, it can take hours just to go a few miles. The wife drives 12 miles from the Seaworld area to IH10 and DeZavala and it's an hour and a half at 6AM. The northside is worse yet around the 1604 area from O'Conner to Bandera Rd. Forget Lp410 in rush hour as yer not going anywhere. I had a church remodel I did at IH10 and Wurzbach. If I didn't get out of there by 4pm sharp it was a 2 hour trip to get home. Even the southside is getting slammed and no, our wonderful morons downtown have nothing working except to argue about changing roads we already paid for into toll roads. Potranco Road at any time of day or night is bumper to bumper. Hwy 151 is mostly stop during rush hour. Unless you're not going far and have a good bicycle, it's a good idea to bring food and water. And then when they do finally decide to improve the roads, it takes years if not decades for them to finish them.

Meh. My wife's commute from King William to Stone Oak Methodist is 20 minutes.

[smuboy86]

Originally Posted by TrapperL

San Antonio absolutely sucks and is getting as bad a Austin. Houston and Dallas are far better off. If you live on the westside of SA, it can take hours just to go a few miles. The wife drives 12 miles from the Seaworld area to IH10 and DeZavala and it's an hour and a half at 6AM. The northside is worse yet around the 1604 area from O'Conner to Bandera Rd. Forget Lp410 in rush hour as yer not going anywhere. I had a church remodel I did at IH10 and Wurzbach. If I didn't get out of there by 4pm sharp it was a 2 hour trip to get home. Even the southside is getting slammed and no, our wonderful morons downtown have nothing working except to argue about changing roads we already paid for into toll roads. Potranco Road at any time of day or night is bumper to bumper. Hwy 151 is mostly stop during rush hour. Unless you're not going far and have a good bicycle, it's a good idea to bring food and water. And then when they do finally decide to improve the roads, it takes years if not decades for them to finish them.

Alamo heights to la Cantera across the city takes me 25 minutes to go 17 miles, people in other Texas cities would cry out of joy for such an easy commute.

[TrapperL]

And both of you are going against the traffic. Good deal if you can get it. Now try going with the traffic but bring lunch. While most of SA is headed towards town, ya'll are headed away. Try that same run at 5pm and see how long it takes.

[rynetwo]

I go from 1604 and 281 all the way to 151 and wiseman and it is 25 minutes in the morning and 35 in the afternoon.

While traffic is getting if you actually look at statictics San Antonio is no where near Austin, Dallas or Houston. Heck not a single road in Bexar County comes up on the top 30 most congested Texas roadways.

Here you go.

http://www.txdot.gov/inside-txdot/pr...-roadways.html

[davis449]

In terms of infrastructure planning and improvement to accommodate growth (the original topic), this is easy:

1.) Dallas\FT. Worth
2.) Houston
3.) San Antonio
4.) Austin

The gap between DFW and Houston is pretty narrow. The gap between Austin and SA (as poorly planned as SA is) is pretty wide. The gap between DFW\Houston and Austin is the Pacific Ocean.