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10 Most Dangerous Intersections in Houston


ehtx1

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Was doing some research on traffic in Houston and saw some interesting stats.  The 10 most dangerous intersections in Houston.  I agree that these are some crazy places to drive through but I would include some others as well.  Do you guys agree ?

 

 

1.    Beltway 8 and Genoa Red Bluff Road (worse)

2.    SH - 249 and FM 2920

3.    U.S. Route 90 Alt. and Beltway 8

4.    Louetta Rd. and I - 45

5.    FM 1093 and Beltway 8

6.    Westheimer and Highway 6

7.    Highway 6 and FM 529

8.    Highway 59 and FM 1960

9.    Highway 225 and Beltway 8

10.  Loop 610 and Wallisville Road

 

But the following I would add to the list as well.

 

Highway 59 and Highway 6  (Sugar Land)

Highway 90 and Grand Parkway (99)  (Sugar Land)

Highway 288 and FM 518  (Pearland)

Loop 610 and Westheimer  (Houston Galleria)

Highway 290 and Hollister & Tidwell  (Northwest Houston)

 

These come to mind for me.  But I know there are plenty of them in Houston.  Your thoughts ?

 

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Louetta @ I-45 was fine until that damn Walmart/Kohls opened. Luckily Kuykendahl (even before the underpass at 1960), serves as a great escape. North will take you to the Woodlands. I'ts blown up since I was 16 and free, but use to be the best route. South will take you to 45. Of course, FM 2920 @ I-45 is a good alternative, as is Cypresswood.

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Westheimer and 6 is incredibly dangerous, with a combination of impatient jacknapes, inattentive boobs, testsoterone-driven speed demons and just general putzes. Gotta give it a count of 5 after the light turns green before inching out.

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Westheimer and 6 is incredibly dangerous, with a combination of impatient jacknapes, inattentive boobs, testsoterone-driven speed demons and just general putzes. Gotta give it a count of 5 after the light turns green before inching out.

 

That's one intersection that could benefit from a grade separation.

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I'm a little surprised by BW8/Genoa Red Bluff - I cross through there occasionally during rush hour as an alternate route coming from Clear Lake if I-45 or Highay 3 are effed up - I would have never guessed it would be on that list, let alone #1 (are they in order of most dangerous?).

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I don't know how *dangerous* it actually is, but my hair stands on end any time I drive the Bermuda Triangle of Kirby, Old Spanish Trail, and South Main in 77025/30.

 

One-way streets crossing the frontage roads also deserve an honorable mention, for example, Shepherd & Greenbriar at US 59 in 77098. Two days ago a minivan turned the wrong way onto Greenbriar just as I was coming around the Audi dealership. There have been enough accidents at that intersection that they've recently reworked the curbs.

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I don't know how *dangerous* it actually is, but my hair stands on end any time I drive the Bermuda Triangle of Kirby, Old Spanish Trail, and South Main in 77025/30.

 

One-way streets crossing the frontage roads also deserve an honorable mention, for example, Shepherd & Greenbriar at US 59 in 77098. Two days ago a minivan turned the wrong way onto Greenbriar just as I was coming around the Audi dealership. There have been enough accidents at that intersection that they've recently reworked the curbs.

One way streets in general are iffy, those two streets in particular. I remember my cousin telling me how she looked in one direction in Greenbriar (I think it was Greenbriar) and found nothing, then she found out as she was crossing, a pack of other cars was coming in the other direction. Whoops. (She got across safely)

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I don't know how *dangerous* it actually is, but my hair stands on end any time I drive the Bermuda Triangle of Kirby, Old Spanish Trail, and South Main in 77025/30.

 

 

 

I drive through here regularly. Miraculously, I've never seen an accident.

But. If you are west bound on OST merging into South Main, there are no lanes painted for the three lanes of traffic and it often causes confusion for drivers.

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  • 2 weeks later...

Holzwarth is continuous from I-45 up to the new ExxonMobil campus now as well--soon enough it will connect to Sawmill Road into The Woodlands as well (by the end of the decade let's hope).

 

Louetta @ I-45 was fine until that damn Walmart/Kohls opened. Luckily Kuykendahl (even before the underpass at 1960), serves as a great escape. North will take you to the Woodlands. I'ts blown up since I was 16 and free, but use to be the best route. South will take you to 45. Of course, FM 2920 @ I-45 is a good alternative, as is Cypresswood.

 

The problem with Louetta and I-45 is bad lane marking, inconsistent median usage, and poor signage. Suburban Houston drivers don't help the cause any either. Traffic from the northbound frontage road exiting to westbound Louetta and southbound frontage road exiting to eastbound Louetta take a 180 degree curve and have their own lane for only about 100 yards before having to merge with at speed traffic all the while on an incline to get up the bridge. If the bridge was striped properly so these folks got their own dedicated lane there would be far fewer accidents. There's no reason to have a left turn lane in the middle of a bridge--get rid of it!!!

 

Just within the past few weeks the right hand lane of both feeder roads was striped for exit only to Louetta to help with the eternal back up that would always happen for traffic attempting to exit from Louetta to the feeder roads.

 

If TxDOT would just put up a few extra signs saying all 45-bound traffic needed to stay right it would reduce the number of accidents. I understand that the existing signage is probably in accordance with requirements--but if you would see just how many cars are in the wrong lane and dart over at the last minute you'd understand.

 

TxDOT did great things to reduce the number of accidents by installing the traffic light years ago at Whitewood Drive and the medians made things even safer--but they only half did the medians. There's no raised median over the bridge where perhaps it is most essential to stopping accidents, and there's a lengthy gap in front of Specs that is a center left turn lane that so many folks use improperly as they did for so many years on 1960. Thank God for the medians on 1960--not one intersection along the median stretch is on this top 10 list. The center left turn lane is not for merging into traffic people. Center dual left hand turn lanes on busy roadways are death traps.

 

An additional merge lane that becomes exit only lane each direction on the bridge, extending the raised median over the bridge as well as the gap before the Holzwarth intersection, and putting up a few more "right lane I-45 north AND south" signs would take this intersection off the most dangerous list.

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  • 1 month later...

Unsurprisingly all of the involve a TxDOT road. They continue to design all streets like they are highways, even in urban areas, leading to high speeds and unsafe conditions. If you look for locations with significant pedestrian and bicycle crashes, TxDOT roadways are among the worst as well. Now perhaps this is just a list of state roads, but I think the stats would support the issue regardless.

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  • 1 year later...

When I was growing up and not really driving yet, the Richmond Rd.(Bissonett)/Bellaire Blvd. intersection was awfully confusing to folks. My mother would often use one of her "j" words when navigating that multi lane crossing. She had several words that began with the letter J.(jerk, joker, or jack-ass when someone really perturbed her). The intersection was nothing like it is today. Bellaire Blvd. had a wide median but the main lanes tightened together as it crossed at a painfully biased intersection with Richmond Rd., but there were also frontage lanes that continued on either side of Bellaire Blvd. that crossed Richmond Rd. also. It took a seasoned resident to keep it all straight in your head trying to figure out who went where. People on Richmond Rd. often turned mistakenly into oncoming traffic. I think the City of Bellaire made several attempts through the years to fix this until finally settling on the current configuration. 

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If they replace the DPS' Pez-license dispenser that would help. Replacing the current licensing with German-style licensing would improve driver quality by a billion percent. Then you wouldn't have dangerous intersections.

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  • The title was changed to 10 Most Dangerous Intersections in Houston

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