[sdnlafkjh34rw]

The traffic in Texas is significantly better than SF and LA. My parents live in a suburb that is 25 miles from the Houston and it takes 45 minutes to get to downtown during commute hours. My girlfriend has an equivalent commute in the Bay which takes around 75-90 minutes during commute hours.

The public transit is terrible in Texas so I expect it will be worse than the Bay in a decade or two if they refuse to build up transit, but for now it's a lot better. Texas has a lot more space so they've addressed traffic issues by building much wider highways and also multiple rings of highways. Obviously that's an unsustainable solution in the long term but for the time being, my Texas friends have way better commutes than what I see my co-workers deal with in the bay.

We shouldn't really be criticizing other states when California is definitely not the model for transit and traffic either. LA is a nightmare and SF is getting close to one as more and more tech companies move away from transit centers and force employees to drive.

[CydeWeys]

Texas is significantly worse than SF for anyone who doesn't have a car. There aren't good alternatives to driving to get around there.

The traffic principally affects you if you drive, hence why Texas is often worse even now than SF.

[sdnlafkjh34rw]

In Texas, you are forced to drive because there isn't public transit. In California, you are forced to drive because you have to live far away from transit centers in order to find affordable housing.

Regardless if you look at commuter data, it's pretty obvious that the Bay Area & LA commuters are significantly higher than Texas metros. We have higher median, average, and extremes in commute times: https://www.mercurynews.com/2019/08/22/bay-area-traffic-dela... https://www.apartmentlist.com/rentonomics/traffic-trains-or-...

[scurvy]

Dallas is terribad. At least it was in 1999 when I lived there. I can't believe that there are fewer people on the road and less traffic now than then.

Fun trivia tip: the opening scene of "Office Space" with the old person and walker going faster than traffic was filmed in Las Colinas (where I worked at the time).

[kodablah]

It has gotten better in 20 years (that's way too long to retain judgement on transportation). Not a ton better, but since most of these companies aren't moving to Dallas proper, it's moot anyways.

[scurvy]

How did they remove the cars from the road?

I'd imagine traffic at the mixmaster and various loops are still terrible.

I had a reverse commute (Lower McKinney to Las Colinas), and I'd see gridlock the entire way there (other direction).