July 18, 2024 - TRA Commentary -

Sitting in traffic more than usual? You bet you are. And it's only going to get worse.

The economic cost of traffic congestion in Texas' major cities continued to climb last year, according to a recently released report, the INRIX 2023 Global Traffic Scorecard.

Houston and Dallas are listed as some of the nation's most congested cities, with Austin and San Antonio not far behind.

INRIX, a transportation data company, ranked Houston as the most congested city in the state, #8 in the U.S. and 19th globally with the region logging 62 hours of delay per motorist last year.

Dallas came in as the 17th most congested city in the U.S. with a 12% increase in traffic congestion compared to pre-pandemic levels. Dallas drivers spent an extra 38 hours behind the wheel.

Peak travel time increased 4% in Houston and 3% in Dallas in just a year. 

Austin came is as the 21st most congested city in the U.S. with San Antonio right behind at #25.

Will this put more pressure on our appointed and elected officials do finally do more than just continue to build and widen highways? It should. 

The demand for roadway travel is exceeding the supply of roadways. As vehicle traffic builds, drivers, freight movers and bus riders lose time and spend fuel unproductively. These "lost time" costs will continue to rise as more and more people flock to the opportunities that our state offers. 

One existing non-highway mode, rail, is totally inadequate and has been overlooked to meet future needs as Texas continues to grow and prosper. The focus for moving people and goods must start shifting to rail.  

You can build more highway lanes, you can put more buses on already overcrowded roads and you can add more runways to our state airports but will all of those together keep Texans moving in an effective, efficient way through our state? No.

Dan Lamers, Senior Program Manager Transportation Planning at the North Central Texas Council of Governments, sums it up: “We can’t build our way out. We don’t have the funding to do it. And, frankly, we don’t have the ability to construct the amount of capacity that we need.”

The 2025 legislative session in Austin starts in mid-January but by then it will be too late to start thinking how we can fund passenger and freight rail projects that we need for the future. The time to start planning and acting is now. 

Monday, November 11, 2024 is the first day legislators and legislators-elect may file bills for the 89th Legislature. 

The time to contact your state senator and state representative is now. Let them know that moving people and goods by rail is critical and they must develop a new paradigm for this effort.  Your elected officials should be asking the Texas Department of Transportation and the Texas Transportation Commission just what are they going to do. 

Fix the roads we have. Build the rail lines we need. These continually rising congestion numbers in our state only point in one direction: We don't need more lanes. We need more trains.