Whats up with Houston traffic????

I know Houston traffic sucks but today was pretty horrible. I try to avoid it as much as possible but this afternoon I made a roadtrip to FoH and on the way back, I expected more stop than go at the 59/610 area, but 610 never cleared! Eastbound 610 was stop and go all the way to 225.

Then to make matters worse, 146 eastbound through Baytown was jacked up too....bumper to bumper all the way to I10. All this was between 3pm and 6pm.

Never once did I see any wreckage or carnage just 2nd gear driving until I got on I10 eastbound then it was 80+ for me and 90+ for all the diesel trucks and eco racers so they could go brag to their buddies they past a Ferrari on the highway!

Has it gotten this bad lately?

 

Maybe just Friday afternoon before a three day weekend?

 

It's the same, some days just seem worse than others.

 

This is why I moved to Austin from Houston last fall. After 50 years in Houston I'd had enough. Granted, the horrible traffic has only been really bad since the early 2000s but the last few years have been ridiculous.

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Austin isn't exactly better

 

In my limited experience in Austin -5 months now- it can't compare. Yes, there are hot spots to avoid in Austin during peak hours but the distances traveled from one place to the next are much shorter. Houston traffic can span 10-20 miles of misery at times. Just a crush of cars for days. I don't find this in Austin. Plus the lifestyle we now have in our suburb- Bee Cave- is so different than where I came from- Houston Heights- I would never move back! However, I do find myself back in H town often for client work.as I still have business connections there.

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Friday afternoon in Houston is terrible everyone is trying to get home to start their weekend, anything after 2:30pm it can be horrid. For me I try and stay off the road from 4pm-6:30pm every weekday. In the morning I'm at work early, so typically I miss the morning madness.

 

Not always an option, but knowing back and side roads is the best way to get around.

 

Austin is absolutely terrible. All of the people moving here have pretty much screwed up this town. After 20 years, I finally moved further out. Austin traffic is horrendous.

I spend quite a bit of time in Houston and yes it's just terrible as well.

Austin is not a great place to live anymore. Too many people have ruined a once good thing.

Oh well.

 

I don't find the traffic in Houston that bad really, as long as you stay off the highways at rush hour. Of course rush hour is really several hours long.

 

Same with Houston. lol

 

That's true lol

 

Use Houston Transtar...it shows you the roads to NOT use....LOL!!

As posted above, always have your "alternates" ready, to play.

 

No traffic at 5 AM when I leave the house.....with a HUGE cup of joe.

 

Uhmmm...I lived in Houston from '83 to '91. During that time the 610/59 interchange was the busiest interstate interchange in the US (or at least that is what the radio stations said). While I'm sure it is worse now, it was bad then. I needed to make it from the Astrodome area to a few miles outside the loop on 59 during rush hour. Allowed 1 hour (for what I recall to be a less than 10 mile trip) and was late. I'd call that really bad back in the day.

 

The flip side is that Houston is built on primary type industries like medical, engineering, manufacturing, fabrication and of course the Energy Industry. If the roads are crowded people are driving to and from work just like you and I and trying to better their lives and their families.

Economic growth, diversity, opportunities the list goes on...the trick is that the City and the surrounding municipalities including TXDOT have to be lock and step with the growth to safely manage traffic and the volume of cars as mass transit is very poor.

 

Well, you see that's the problem. If we did groovy stuff like they do in California, everything would be wonderful. Oh, wait a minute, have you driven on the 405 lately? Or how about the 101 in Silicon Valley?

Truth is the model of building more and more roads doesn't work. The only thing you get with more and more roads is more and more cars. But mass transit doesn't work for cities like Houston and LA because we're too spread out. Any mass transit line ends up being a ghetto runway.

What's the answer? You're not going to like this, but allowing only autonomous cars during rush hour is the solution. This is going to sound silly, but traffic jams are caused by people braking. Autonomous cars may slow down, but they never stop. What takes an hour today, will take 20 minutes if we had autonomous cars pick us up and drop us off. The even better news is we will not have to build any more roads. The existing infrastructure will work fine.

 

My solution is that I live near downtown. I'm always going against traffic during rush hour. I drive through the 59/610 interchange every day and there's never a slow down. The flip side is that if you live in the suburbs and work downtown mass transit works very well in Houston. The people that have it the worst are the ones who live in a suburb like Clear Lake or Pasadena and work in an area on the opposite side of town like the Energy Corridor.

 

We'll have to agree to disagree...best discussed over a beer.

 

You betcha!


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You are right, but the answer is fluid dynamics. The issue is that to get more cars (particles) through the same constrained space over the same amount of time the transit speed of the particles has to increase. At some point most drivers (i.e. not race car drivers) will not do the speed necessary at the limited following distance necessary (or they try to do it and they crash).

 

Residency? Probably not, eight years would have been too long.

 

Again, I know it sounds stupid, but what causes traffic jams is braking. One person brakes, and then, and then, and then...

If all the particles keep moving, they never stop, the transit time falls like a rock.

And then, there's parking. There is a professor at MIT who is the guru of parking. I'm not kidding. He estimates there are five parking spaces per car. By definition, this means 80% of parking spaces are empty at any given time. Imagine developing downtown real estate and you don't have to provide parking.

Plus, then when these cars go fuel cell...

 

Med school, internship, then residency.

 

Cool. You lived through the worst economic downturn Houston has ever seen. Before then, it was a rising tide. After the '80s, not so much. I dunno if you have been back to the med center. I think it is a separate zip code today.