Bob Plumb Posted December 14, 2011 Share Posted December 14, 2011 I have been anxious to ask a more knowledgeable crowd this for a while.I am surely not the only one who has noticed a HUGE increase in traffic in both directions AM & PM on I10 West.I get on at Fry Rd about 6:20a and head in to the BW over to my office near 59/BW. Before I would be one of two or three cars on the toll road headed to 59S in the am. Now that route is jam packed with cars. It is amazing. It literally happened OVER NIGHT. The VERY day school started this past September I have noticed it taking about 10 minutes longer in the morning. I previously could leave my office at 4:30p and have a pretty fast and free ride back home and now the same time is backed up and slow. I occasionally would wait around and leave at 6:30p and rush hour would be fairly well cleared out and I would have a fast right home. Now I can even leave at 7:30p(!!!) and it is backed up and slow.I have never seen anything like that and I have not been enjoying the extra 20 minutes it takes for me to get home at night. It seems the newly expanded I10 West is already outgrown.Not to sound unfriendly but I must attribute the overnight extra traffic to all of the out of town folks who must have moved to Houston this past summer for work or looking for work judging from the hundreds of OOT license plates I see everywhere. (Welcome by the way!)So am I just imagining this or has everyone else noticed this as well? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
IronTiger Posted December 15, 2011 Share Posted December 15, 2011 School does seem to wreck havoc on roadways. Even in College Station, one stretch of road between two stoplights grinds to a crawl between 5 and 6pm (I blame the new-ish student apartments there). But I am surprised that Katy Freeway got this way so fast. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Talbot Posted December 20, 2011 Share Posted December 20, 2011 I have noticed as well, it is just insane how crowded it is at times. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Subdude Posted December 20, 2011 Share Posted December 20, 2011 It's the old story - increasing the capacity for traffic ends up increasing traffic. It never fails. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
VelvetJ Posted December 21, 2011 Share Posted December 21, 2011 It's the old story - increasing the capacity for traffic ends up increasing traffic. It never fails.You are absolutely correct, It NEVER fails. And frankly I'm not so surprised it has begun so soon after the completed project.On a semi-related note, I recall discussing paying to sit in traffic on the Westpark tollway on this site a couple of Years ago. The backup on it was horrendous. A few made the argument it was due to the construction on the Katy Freeway. Well, the construction is over on the Katy, and guess what? The Westpark tollway is the same.Create more car capacity and you will get more cars. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Houston19514 Posted December 21, 2011 Share Posted December 21, 2011 You are absolutely correct, It NEVER fails. And frankly I'm not so surprised it has begun so soon after the completed project.On a semi-related note, I recall discussing paying to sit in traffic on the Westpark tollway on this site a couple of Years ago. The backup on it was horrendous. A few made the argument it was due to the construction on the Katy Freeway. Well, the construction is over on the Katy, and guess what? The Westpark tollway is the same.Create more car capacity and you will get more cars.It might have something to do with the fact that we had almost 140,000 people to our population each and every year. We've added more than 1 million additional people since the Katy reconstruction started. And let's be serious, it is NOT as congested yet as it was pre-reconstruction. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Modernceo Posted December 31, 2011 Share Posted December 31, 2011 You're not the only one to notice. It seemed to me that the traffic didn't increase around school restarting, but daylight savings time. My theory is that people are driving much slower, with bigger gaps between cars because it's darker outside now. Either way, I'm not happy to find my drive inbound at 630 being much longer, and slower. It used to be that I could sail along and not worry about traffic. Not anymore. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ig2ba Posted January 23, 2012 Share Posted January 23, 2012 IronTiger and VelvetJ,The traffic Katy Freeway is nothing like it used to be before it was expanded, if that's what you're trying to imply. Ten years ago, you could count on driving 20 mph from Washington St. to Highway 6, even outside of core rush hours, e.g. 3pm. It's much faster now.Oh, and we've added more than 1.3 million people to the area since then, most of them on the west and north sides of downtown. What would you expect? An empty highway? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ig2ba Posted January 23, 2012 Share Posted January 23, 2012 I have been anxious to ask a more knowledgeable crowd this for a while.I am surely not the only one who has noticed a HUGE increase in traffic in both directions AM & PM on I10 West.I get on at Fry Rd about 6:20a and head in to the BW over to my office near 59/BW. Before I would be one of two or three cars on the toll road headed to 59S in the am. Now that route is jam packed with cars. It is amazing. It literally happened OVER NIGHT. The VERY day school started this past September I have noticed it taking about 10 minutes longer in the morning. I previously could leave my office at 4:30p and have a pretty fast and free ride back home and now the same time is backed up and slow. I occasionally would wait around and leave at 6:30p and rush hour would be fairly well cleared out and I would have a fast right home. Now I can even leave at 7:30p(!!!) and it is backed up and slow....Sorry, I can't tell which part you're saying is slow. The eastbound I-10 exit ramp to BW8 southbound? Is it just the exit ramp or other parts? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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