If you’ve ever driven a truck then you know how stressful it can be to have to navigate the freeways in traffic. And no plave knows traffic quite like Austin. It happens to be the most gridlocked roadway in all of the Lone Star State. The stretch of space between the I-35 and the U.S. 290 recently overcame the horrors that be on the Eastex Freeway. Before, the horrific I-69 was the worst roadway to find yourself congested in, within all of Texas. The full list can be seen here. Even Texas Transportation Commission Chairman J. Bruce Bugg agrees that it sucks. “Congestion on I-35 in Austin is now the worst choke point in Texas.”
So why should you worry about I-35?
Because in 2019 alone, truckers were held up more than 26 million hours in the gridlocks! And, to add insult to injury, over 44 million gallons of fuel were guzzled when “go, man! go!” was just not enough.
The Texas A&M Transportation Institute (TTI for short) continued to show in their study that 1,800 sections of roads covered more than 10,000 miles in all of rural Texas. That’s a lot of ground that’s not being covered! What’s the hold up?!
While other stretches of pavement, like the Gulf Freeway and Fort Worth Stemmons, have their numbers high up there, it is concerning that Austin, a major city of export, is caught in traffic so often. Certainly, not the news that logistics want to hear when pushing towards transporting essential goods.
I suppose a reality in which we see flying trucks, or flying cars for that matter, may not be so close as we still haven’t streamlined the flow of ground transportation. It’s with high hopes that someday, we as a country can prove urban dynamics wrong and beat the terror that is being stuck in heavy-duty traffic, fit for a giant.
