Transportation Institute Ranks Austin Section Of I-35 Most Congested In State

A section of Interstate 35 in Austin was rated the state’s No. 1 most congested roadway in 2020 by the Texas Transportation Institute. The road segment from U.S. Highway 290 North to State Highway 71 switched places with last year’s most congested highway – Interstate 610 in Houston from I-10 to I-69.

Dallas and Harris counties accounted for the remainder of the top 10 most congested roads. Southwest Freeway retained its third-place ranking from 2019. Fourth-place Woodall Rogers Freeway in Dallas swapped places with fifth-place Eastex Freeway.

Two Houston road sections cracked the top 10 most congested list for 2020: North Loop W. Freeway/I-610, which was the sixth-worst congested, and I-10/U.S. 90, which was 10th.

Rounding out the top 10 were:

• 7 – Gulf Freeway from I-10 to S. Loop E. Freeway. 
• 8 – Stemmons Freeway from John Carpenter Freeway to Tom Landry Freeway.
• 9 – U.S. Highway 75 from Interstate 635 to Woodall Rogers. 

The most congested roads on the list are in the four largest metro areas of the state: Austin, Dallas-Fort Worth, Houston, and San Antonio

• The 52 most congested roadways are in these four regions and 86 of the top 88.
• 95 of the top 100 congested sections are in these four regions.
• 174 of the top 200 are in the four largest metro regions.

The institute, which is a member of the Texas A&M University System, measures congestion by the number of extra hours of travel time (also called ‘delay’) experienced by travelers on each section of the road analyzed.

In 2009, the Texas Legislature mandated that the Texas Department of Transportation (TxDOT) produce an annual ranked list of the most congested roadways in the state.

This story originally published by Strategic Partnerships.