I seriously can't imagine Austin's traffic being worse than Houston's. That would have to be some rush hour!
I-35 at rushhour is just as bad as the worst Houston traffic i've ever ran into. HOWEVER, seeing as how Houston is a gignatic sprawling metropolis the traffic problems are expected.. Austin's traffic is due to an overwhelmed infrastructure.. something that normally isn't a problem for a city of its size. Austin traffic is a lot more frustrating than Houston traffic, because it shouldn't be a problem..
It takes me an hour in traffic to get from Mopac at 183 to West Campus. In Houuston, I can take the Westpark Tollway and get from my home in SW Houston to Downtown in about 30 minutes.
That's bizarre. In 12 years I've lived here, it's never taken me anywhere close to an hour to go from Barton Creek Mall to Mopac/183.
I would hope so, given that you probably went through at least 30 stop lights in the process. Your problem wasn't traffic, but trying to cross half the city on Lamar.
That's odd. Why were you using Lamar? You probably could have made it in 5 minutes using Mopac or I-35 at 2PM.
quit trying to lance armstrong the highway dude. get a car. in traffic it takes 20 minutes. can i give you a hint ? ride the feeder road.
Sure, it probably would've been faster to go Mopac (35? Yeah, right.), but that doesn't change the fact that I go the same distance in rush hour in Houston everyday in about 7-8 less minutes. I also have more choices in the route I'm going to take here. If I was just going from 12th to Riverside that day, it would've taken me 15 minutes. That's ridiculous. Overall, of course Houston traffic is worse. It only has about three or four times as many people. It's the relativity of the traffic that gets me. Austin's for its size, IMO, is worse than Houston's for its size. But again, comparing the two cities, Major hit it on the head. It's all about what you enjoy more. There are many things I miss about Austin, but I don't think they outweigh the attributes of Houston I missed when I lived there. That week I was working that contract job at the law firm there at Northland, it'd take over 30 minutes to get to your place when I left at 5:00 or so. Going by the drive times on the traffic reports, you can go a farther distance in Houston on the freeways at that time.
Austin... worse traffic than Houston? Whaaaa? I've brought a gun to your stupid amateur (monkey) knife fight: According to the 2005 Urban Mobility Report, Houston is the 6th worst city in the U.S. for travel time and 5th worst for delays. Austin is 23rd in travel time and 13th for delays. THE END. You lose, General Kenobi.
Considering the Houston Metro area has ~4.7 million people (10th in the US according to the 2000 Census), I'm not surprised at all that it's higher than Austin in this category. Of course, Austin is 13th in delays, yet it's only the 37th biggest metro area with ~1.2 million people.
Hey, I don't like it myself, but research is research. This TTI report is apparently official enough, as it is referenced a ton of times by the federal government in various other reports. Me 1, You 0.
I'm willing to discount the travel time statistic, as getting around Houston is just ridiculous. However, the 8-spot traveler delay difference is large enough for me to justify calling myself the victor and winner of this argument. Want a rematch? According to this site, Houston is the 44th least congested metro, while Austin is 34th. Ha ha! You lose again!
