HOUSTON TRAFFIC…some roads stand out as particularly bad offenders. Here (in no particular order) are five of the absolute worst:
Ernesto Sigmon is a Personal Injury Lawyer in Houston | www.SigmonLawPLLC.com
Broadway
A trip down this ancient path is the exact opposite of its glitz and glamour namesake in New York City.
Broadway functions as the major artery into and out of the city via Hobby Airport, and deserves a makeover.
In all fairness, a lot of road construction is underway, but our great city also deserves a touch of beauty leading up to its urban airport.
Let’s get some art and statues on the median to complement those (we hope) soon to be smooth roads. Right now, a trip up Broadway is like running the gauntlet. Stay tuned.
Scott Street
Anyone who has spent any time around the University of Houston campus will have fond memories of sitting in their broiling car in bumper to bumper traffic on Scott Street while trying to avoid endless traffic cones and raging streams of pedestrians and cyclists seemingly oblivious to the traffic lights or “Do Not Walk” signs, and the specter of the Metro Rail to boot.
This is a high profile area bordering one of the city’s best educational systems. A little re-paving might make us all better off.
Shepherd
This has been a huge mess inside of the 610 loop for roughly the last 15 years.
It’s almost as if the city is obsessed with making this really important street almost “impassable” (I know, I know)—with a constant excavation cycle where the entirety of each lane is dug up, piling up a huge mess of scaffolding on the side of the road, and reburied before being dug up all over again, ad nauseum.
I’m not quite sure why this cycle exists, other than perhaps helping prop up local auto shops specializing in alignment and suspension issues for European vehicles.
Also, that hairpin turn into a stream of oncoming BMWs and Porsches just before West Gray (where 4 lanes have converged into 2) is a real nail biter in the rain.
Richmond Avenue
It’s rare for a stretch of asphalt to directly impact partisan politics.
In the case of Richmond Avenue though, I believe Sylvester Turner’s promises to do something about Houston’s potholes may have been responsible for getting him elected mayor. Richmond Avenue is a pothole mecca.
Heading southbound on Richmond in the left lane between Montrose and Kirby is something to behold and not for the weak of heart.
The 59/610N Interchange
Literally known throughout the country as one of “the most dangerous intersections” ever.
This perpetual logjam on steroids is the predictable result of deciding that the best way for drivers to make their way from a major interstate freeway into one of the most popular commercial shopping areas in the city would be to:
- have everyone line up single file in the rightmost lane of a 5-lane road,
- painstakingly inch forward,
- avoid dozens of other cars trying to merge into the front of the line,
- join a stream of immediately oncoming vehicles from another direction, and
- exit off of the freeway to make one final left turn.
What could possibly go wrong with something this logical and efficient?
Honorable mention: Highway 290
Probably the best proof we have of what Hell most likely resembles.
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