Traffic in DFW (Dallas, Plano, Little Elm: camp, living in, costs)

[ChristieP]

Originally Posted by TurtleCreek80

Yup, you can get a brand new huge home for $175k in DFW, but don't complain when you hate your 2 hours a day commute to downtown from Little Elm or Melissa or wherever.

EXACTLY!!!

[hal2814]

I feel like the Canadian telling Americans to stop complaining about gas taxes, but yeah, traffic in DFW is nothing. Here there are pocket of traffic with otherwise clear roads. In most places, the traffic is everywhere. Imagine every single part of your metropolitan area having traffic at least as bad as the US75 @ I635 area (or that I-35W / TX377 / I820 debacle for those of you in Tarrant County). That is what traffic is like in most metropolitan areas. You don't sit through a small patch off bad traffic and then hit the open highway. You hit a small patch of bad traffic only to hit another small patch of bad traffic and then another and then another. Bravo to the DFW area for being so forward-thinking on their road planning and construction.

[xS☺B☺s]

Yeah, it's not as combative as other places nor as jammed, but the distances as TC said compounds the misery. You just waste so much of your life stuck in a car.

The other thing is people here wreck a whole helluva lot more than any other I've ever been. That plays on your nerves too- the constant actual physical danger. I try to stay off 75 and 635 as much as possible. That's where you'll find the worst most overconfident yet under-qualified jackasses in town trying the most reckless stunts ending in the most epic fails. If I do ever end up in a wreck, I'd prefer it to be at 35 mph than 70. Having that option is nice too.

That's another plus too. I had to go from BUMC to Baylor Irving and I just totally dread that whole mid-city mess. So rather than go the standard route (woodall/35/114/183 etc) I drove west on Commerce Ave as far as it would take me and followed the logical back streets. To my delight it was quick, interesting (not pretty but), and utterly stress free. There were places where there was absolutely ZERO traffic. Deeelightful. Some of those bridges over the Trinity are sweet. They are the better way but if you never get off the highways you'll never find them.

[nsumner]

Traffic has never bothered me and yes it is not as bad as Chicago at all. You do spend a lot of time in the car because everything is so spread out, you don't spend a lot of time in jams, or at lights, it's driving distance.

I used to drive from Barrington to Schaumburg in 45 minutes and most of that time was sitting in traffic and here I drive across a big chunck of the metroplex in that time.

Because of my occupation, I spend a lot of time in my car and drive about 1500 miles a week around the metroplex, going from McKinney to Cedar Hill the same day then to Southlake and Rockwall. I do this during peak hours and at off hours. I guess it's a tolerance issue.

Naima

[pinipig523]

Originally Posted by nsumner

Traffic has never bothered me and yes it is not as bad as Chicago at all. You do spend a lot of time in the car because everything is so spread out, you don't spend a lot of time in jams, or at lights, it's driving distance.

I used to drive from Barrington to Schaumburg in 45 minutes and most of that time was sitting in traffic and here I drive across a big chunck of the metroplex in that time.

Because of my occupation, I spend a lot of time in my car and drive about 1500 miles a week around the metroplex, going from McKinney to Cedar Hill the same day then to Southlake and Rockwall. I do this during peak hours and at off hours. I guess it's a tolerance issue.

Naima

I agree. Barrington to Schaumburg should only take 12-15 minutes without traffic... 45 just goes to show how tough traffic can be.

Everyone was like... Southlake to McKinney is a nightmare - but it took me 65 minutes to get to McKinney FROM Ft Worth during rush hour!

If I was right off 114, I would've made it to McKinney from Southlake in 45. Nightmare? Try Chicago to Elgin in rush hour - 2 hours.

[synchronicity]

Hey, is everyone here from Chicago originally? Barrington to Schaumburg is right around my old stomping grounds. Around Woodfield traffic was bloody awful most of the time, plus downtown Barrington isn't really close to any major freeways, so you'd have a trek to get to I-90 (or take Northwest Highway thru Palatine to Rt. 53).

I am often amazed at how "quickly" I need to refill my car with gas down here, then realize that going from Addison to Colleyville and back (for example) means I've covered ~50 miles. It doesn't feel that long because it's a fast drive most of the time.

[pinipig523]

Originally Posted by synchronicity

Hey, is everyone here from Chicago originally? Barrington to Schaumburg is right around my old stomping grounds. Around Woodfield traffic was bloody awful most of the time, plus downtown Barrington isn't really close to any major freeways, so you'd have a trek to get to I-90 (or take Northwest Highway thru Palatine to Rt. 53).

I am often amazed at how "quickly" I need to refill my car with gas down here, then realize that going from Addison to Colleyville and back (for example) means I've covered ~50 miles. It doesn't feel that long because it's a fast drive most of the time.

You're right, downtown Barrington is far from I90. South Barrington is located in a pretty good location in terms of proximity to I90.

Too bad both places are really expensive.

[nsumner]

Originally Posted by synchronicity

Hey, is everyone here from Chicago originally? Barrington to Schaumburg is right around my old stomping grounds. Around Woodfield traffic was bloody awful most of the time, plus downtown Barrington isn't really close to any major freeways, so you'd have a trek to get to I-90 (or take Northwest Highway thru Palatine to Rt. 53).

Yep, I worked right across Woodfield at Motorola HQ.

Naima

[Trae713]

It's not too bad. It's more random backed up traffic, than when I lived in Houston. Fort Worth is getting bad tho.

[synchronicity]

Heh, it really is an ex (or soon to-be-ex) Chicago reunion here. Re: Barrington - yeah, South Barrington is growing by leaps and bounds, and just had a ton of new development near Rt. 59 and I-90. And yes, Barrington is expensive as all get-out. My budget here probably doesn't get me anything there. Re: Woodfield - yeah, that's why we always drove to the Costco in Lake Zurich instead of the one in Schaumburg.

One observation about DFW compared to Chicago - it's been said before, but everything is more spread out here. Also, traffic here is different in many subtle ways. For one thing, many (most) of "regular" streets (the equivalent of, say, Dundee Road or Golf Road or the like) down here with three lanes of traffic each way, which is almost unheard of in Chi. Shoulders are nonexistent on these roads. Another item - many traffic lights don't have an "A-B" pattern, but rather some type of A-B-C-D pattern. In other words, instead of "North-South" street having a green light (with a left turn signal prior to the green at busier intersection) and then the "East-West" street having a green, the lights are staggered with the Green light going roughly "North", then "West", then "South", then "East". Even if there's a green for "North-South", they'll often be staggered such that North will have a turn signal at the beginning of the cycle and South at the end of the cycle, rather than both having a turn signal at the beginning of the cycle. It takes some getting used to.

Expressways and Tollways are often more than 3 lanes each way, and the drivers here generally don't follow "slower traffic to the right". One of my pet peeves here is the "slower driver in a middle lane", which causes other traffic to break around them to the left OR the right much like water in a river going around a rock. There also appears to be a greater variation in the speed people drive on the expressways (maybe it just seems that way because people drive almost any speed in any lane), so you get the people driving 10 MPH below the speed limit in that middle lane and the drivers going 25+ above the speed limit swerving around them and cutting in and out of traffic. And yes, there is a subset of pickup truck drivers who apparently believe they are immune to the laws of physics and that pickups have special priority re: right-of-way.

There is constant expansion of the expressways/tollways here, with new, larger interchanges going up All The Time, to a far greater extent than anything in Chi (the only similar scaled thing I can think of in Chicago was the recent southward expansion of I-355). The interchanges are massive affairs of ribbons of concrete that go quite high. Just off the top of my head, there's the 114/121 interchange going up near the airport, the 121/Dallas North Tollway interchange, the 26/114 Interchange, and I'm sure there are many more (does anyone know if anything will ever happen between 114 and the Bush? They have those concrete pillars there but it looks like no work will ever be done beyond that).

That's a few things I've noticed in my almost 10 months down here.