Congrats, Houston: We no longer have the most congested road in Texas (Austin: home)

[Redlionjr]

Stretch of I-35 in Austin finally beat out IH-610 from Katy Freeway to Southwest Freeway. But Houston still has 6 out of the top 10 congested roads in the state.

https://www.chron.com/news/houston-t...p-15769480.php

Houston just lost a No. 1 ranking in the state of Texas. But save any disappointment—it wasn't exactly a badge of honor.

In Texas A&M University's annual study of the most congested roadways in Texas, a stretch of I-35 in Austin bumped part of the West Loop from its top spot, making IH-610 from Katy Freeway to Southwest Freeway now the second most congested roadway in Texas. West Loop was previously ranked number one the past two years.

According to the study (and probably many Houstonian anecdotes), the peak time for the 610 stretch is 5 p.m. for both northbound and southbound. The average speed going southbound at 5 p.m. is 20 mph, versus northbound's 30 mph.

This particular stretch of IH 610 sees over 220,000 vehicles drive over it every day. Basically, after 5:30 a.m., there's no hope of hitting 60 mph in either direction there.

We shouldn't feel too excited yet, though. Harris County is home to six of the top 10 most congested roadways in the state, and surrounding region around Harris County is heavily represented in the top 100 ranking, with 36 overly congested roads ranging from Sugar Land to The Woodlands.

[Dopo]

Houston's traffic is caused by bad highway design ....... period.

Every other exit/entrance ramp is complete crap.
TXDOT recently spent $2.6 million to fix the 249 exit ramp at Spring Cypress
to make it the way it should have been designed from the beginning

https://communityimpact.com/houston/...s-jones-roads/

"Hwy. 249 northbound traffic exiting to Spring Cypress Road during the afternoon commute was queuing up back on the main lanes due to the close proximity of the exit ramp to the Hwy. 249/Spring Cypress Road signalized intersection," Perez said in an email. "This queuing created a bottleneck between motorists entering the freeway from Jones Road and merging into high-speed traffic on the main lanes."




You also have several places like I-69 driving North to get on the loop
for whatever reason .... the solid line is used between the exit ramp to go 610 North and to go 610 South
but there's dash lines between the lanes that keep on going on I-69 North and the 610 North exit ramp.

https://www.google.com/maps/@29.7263...8i8192!5m1!1e1