Cutting in at the last moment when I have patiently stood at a standstill for the last mile makes my blood boil. My am commute is 20 minutes but I leave the Champion Forest area at 6:20 but coming home from 290 and Fairbanks takes me about 45 minutes via the beltway which is normally bumper to bumper at 5:15ish
This is another reason why you shouldn't leave a monster gap when you're sitting in line. I will say that people who cluelessly sit in the right lane when there are several lanes and don't exit/turn are pretty damn annoying. They're contributing to the congestion.
This spot has always been terrible but seems even more terrible now. The stupid exit beltway 8 to get on the feeder to try to get onto Westpark tollway W is the dumbest thing in the world. You literally have connecting ramps from beltway to westpark and vice versa in every direction but this one part...
I come home on WestPark but get on from 59 which dead stops and then crawls for 20 minutes because of the traffic merging from the beltway. Idk the solution but it is soul crushing to inch forward in congestion that as soon as you get passed the merging you are flying. There has to be a faster way to get people to merge together.
The solutions: Move Get a different job Drive a different route Work different hours Work from home Get a helicopter
When I go driving around for whatever nowadays, it seems to me that traffic isn't anywhere near as bad up here in parts of DFW as it was before COVID. I'm guessing it's because of the people that quit and/or are WFH. My drive from downtown Dallas to the burbs/exurbs of North Dallas used to be around 1.25 hours if no wrecks or rain. It seemed like the times I've been caught around rush hour, it was bad, but not as bad as it used to be, but maybe I'm imagining it. Crazy drivers are everywhere up here, too. I always thought it was because of this that there are more people driving like lunatics - because they have more space to drive like lunatics due to less bumper-to-bumper traffic. So then you have kooks like @Sajan driving and weaving around traffic so he can save 2 minutes on his drive. I definitely saw that a couple of weeks ago when I drove down to Houston and back. Lord. On I-45 around the Woodlands/Spring area, if you're doing 75 trying not to get run over, there's always some idiot trying to audition for Fast and the Furious 27 or or whatever they're up to, riding your bumper. Then they go from lane to lane to lane to move up 2 cars or something. The other two things I see nowadays are people just zipping through school zones. I saw a damn school bus speed through a school zone a few weeks ago. The second thing is if the left lane is backed up with people waiting to turn left and the lane to its right is "straight only", they'll take that straight lane and turn left anyway. I had a co-worker once tell me if anybody does that to him, he'd ram them or run them up the curb - he didn't give a damn. They can tell the cops why they were turning from a no-turn lane. lol
I am a calculated speeder. Meaning I don’t weave through traffic or risk my life to do it. I go max +25 over (so I can do defensive driving if I get a ticket) but most often it’s 10-15 over. That’s only when lane is open and I can switch to it safely. I also don’t tail people. What irks are all the other things I mentioned in the original post. It doesn’t mean I want everyone to go 100 mph.
"max +25 mph over (so I can do defensive driving if I get a ticket)". "75mph is the minimum you should be going." lol. I'm starting to see at least part of the problem.
You've been in little D too long. Houston is massive (600 square miles). Maybe not as big as Dallas's ego, but it's a megapolis and you have to book it to get from a to b.
The solution is that no one understands the concept of zipper merging. It's people blocking each other from merging and people trying to leap frog and people scared of getting blocked so they merge super early blocking everyone else..
i mentioned this in the original post. people think zipper merging is rude but in reality zipper merge is more efficient and you use both lanes to the full extent instead of stopping 1 mile early to get in.
Both areas pretty much suck in terms of traffic and have the same complaints of people speeding, driving erratically, and I see it almost every day in DFW and every time I travel back to Houston. And also the complaints about "it was all great until the Californians arrived" - can't forget that. You may not like to admit it, but both cities are damn-near the same sprawling mess with ever-increasing populations. lol. P.S. - The DFW area is way larger than 600 sq. miles. So there. Neener neener neener. Want to feel even more insecure? Jacksonville is bigger than Houston. Nyaaaa!
@B-Bob thinks some of yall need to see this https://bbs.clutchfans.net/threads/david-lynch.317268/#post-14282859
