The suburbs (Katy) have more traffic congestion than the City limits

[LonghornHotspur]

Originally Posted by LocalPlanner

You're implying that a parent can't get the education they want for your child in North Katy, based only on these rankings. Is there really any reason that would be true? Is a parent that chooses to save money and time by living in North Katy (or any of the other moderately priced, better located suburbs) doing a disservice to their child?

No more than choosing a longer commute for the better schools, which was the original object of ridicule on this board. Everyone makes their own choices.

[Jamaraa]

North or South Katy doesn’t make a difference they are both long brutal commutes from major employment centers in the galleria or downtown areas.

[curbur]

Originally Posted by jd433

WOW!! I just saw that Katy has huge plans for a waterfront Boardwalk district that is right next to the mall.
That is good news for Katy. Apparently the new Boardwalk District will even have a convention center. Katy just keeps growing and growing. They are breaking ground all over the place there. It's hard to keep track of all the development.

lol.. this has been planned and supposedly in the works for years. They need to hurry up and start building it..

[gwarnecke]

They are.

[Jamaraa]

Originally Posted by jd433

WOW!! I just saw that Katy has huge plans for a waterfront Boardwalk district that is right next to the mall.
That is good news for Katy. Apparently the new Boardwalk District will even have a convention center. Katy just keeps growing and growing. They are breaking ground all over the place there. It's hard to keep track of all the development.

The Katy areas development is insignificant for anyone living inside Houston city limits. With all that undeveloped land it’s not surprising Katy is growing at the rate it is. Future suburbanites moving to Katy will be the ones to benefit from this.

Katy should have been way more developed than its current form however the recession delayed many things.

[KerrTown]

It's undoubtable that the Katy area (i.e. not only incorporated town) is the most populated suburb of Houston. Estimates have put the population at 300,000. It feels more like 500,000 right now with the daily traffic jams on the Cinco Ranch section of SH-99 at odd hours of the day.

With the new subdivisions north of the town proper along the new SH-99 section, it won't take long for the population to be actually 500,000. (Fort Bend County, where most of Cinco Ranch and neighboring master-planned communities are located, currently has a population of 500,000.)

Now where's the mall? I'm tired of driving 20 miles to shop at Macy's!

[Htown2013]

Originally Posted by Wasir

Local roads? I’m referring to Grand Parkway and IH-10 if those aren’t local roads what is? Considering 99 was originally constructed in Katy. It’s congested daily and is worse on saturdays. The “local” roads you must be referring to are non highway roads such as Mason or Fry? None of those Katy roads have any character, they are so suburban bland with boring generic strip centers and fast food joints. The roads in Katy will never be on par with Houston roads. I love Westheimer, post oak, sage, Eldridge Parkway, Richmond, dairy Ashford, Westpark, fondren, Gessner, etc. I could drive on those roads everyday and I wouldn’t complain at all, I just love it. And once I have moved out of Katy I won’t ever have to take Ih-10 or another highway ever again, I’ll just take Westheimer! Or Westpark tollway if I’m in a rush. Living in west Houston has so many advantages!

IH-10 also known as the Katy Freeway is actually the main artery for the Katy area, Katy has developed heavily around i-10 so most people living in Katy take IH-10 to go anywhere. Someone living in Cinco Ranch isn’t going to take mason, Fry, kingsland etc. for running errands.

Most traffic on IH-10 is all Katy traffic, people are going west bound, so they either live in north Katy or south katy. If there’s a load of traffic on I-10 west past Highway 6 where else do you think people are driving to? I drive on i10 daily and there is very smooth flowing traffic up until highway 6/ park row area. Are you seriously trying to teach me a lesson?

I noted the suburban parent dropping off kids thing because there are loads of people like myself coming from a tiring commute from work and to top it off we have to deal with extra local traffic with people who don’t go to work but instead just roam around. Doesn’t sound too fair now does it?

BTW the expansion of 99 isn’t going to happen until 2022 at the earliest..And I honestly don’t care considering I will probably be living in the Energy Corridor by then. I’m already looking at houses as we speak. And again as I have mentioned once I’m living in the Energy Corridor I won’t even have to take IH-10, I can take Westheimer which has much much smoother traffic. Did you know taking Westheimer from the Galleria to Cinco Ranch is a faster commute than IH-10 during peak rush hour traffic? Just FYI

Even Sugar Land has way more character than Katy will ever have and it has less traffic too.
59 commute from the Galleria into Sugar Land is nowhere near as bad as Galleria to katy taking I-10

Sugar Land traffic isn't really all that bad once in SL. The SL to downtown commute sucks because of all the traffic congestion bottleneck cluster at the Galleria, and then the powers that be decide to close one lane each way for over a year at the most congested point without offering any accommodations. The 59 HOV is only one lane and completely closed to HOT during peak times. It sucks. West Bellfort P&R sucks and there is no direct Express bus from Sugar Land, so to avoid the traffic hell is to work crazy hours and hardly ever be home during workweek.

[Petyr Baelish]

Considering how undeveloped the Katy area once was only 15-20 years ago it’s amazing to see how Katy has surpassed Houston in terms of traffic congestion and growth within the last year or so. Aside from the West loop, Houston roads don’t have nearly as much congestion as Katy or other suburbs for that matter.

Out of all the suburbs I would say Katy definitely has the worst traffic, this used to be true for Sugar Land but Katy has now far surpassed sugar land in terms of growth and congestion.

Between Mason and 99 around the IH-10 frontage is a massive construction zone right now. Has anyone else noticed how they have started developing that huge lot of undeveloped forest land between Westside Parkway and Mason fronting I-10. That piece of land was one of the very last undeveloped sites fronting IH-10 west in the Katy area. There is also a huge apartment complex going up on the once vacant land near Greenhouse and IH-10 next to At Home (former Garden Ridge).

Tons of apartment complexes are currently being constructed everywhere around 99 too.

With this rate of extraordinary development 10-15 years from now Katy will probably become a micro city.