My two cents on this video about Texas' traffic

Having worked in the delivery business in the Houston area for about 30 years, I have some definite opinions of certain points in the matter.

The discussion in this video talked a bit about Houston's traffic. There's something there I'd like to discuss, hence the video embed.

The widest freeway in the USA, according to this guy, is what the locals call the "Katy Freeway". No doubt about it, it is a monster. But it is a failure as far as I'm concerned. More concrete isn't necessarily better. The odd thing about it was the last piece of new concrete that was added just as it was opening up back around 2006-2008 time period. I can't exactly remember when it opened, by the way. That's the reason for the spread out in time from 2006-2008.

When it opened, the freeway traffic pattern was beautiful. Traffic didn't back up at all, even during rush hour. But the smart folks wanted to add some toll lanes right down the middle of the thing. These didn't open up immediately. But when it did, it screwed up the traffic patterns. Why?

The toll lanes attraced the people who were in a hurry, and those who rode liked to ride the transit lanes. The transit lanes and the toll lanes shared the center toll lanes. Once this opened, more traffic was diverted on to it, and this traffic had to merge. It was this merging traffic that just ruined the traffic pattern for the entire freeway. In the end, all the new concrete did little to improve overall traffic flow. This is why I call it a failure.

Maybe it moved more cars during rush hour. But it didn't end the snarled traffic during peak rush hours. Rush hour might have been shortened. But that's about all they accomplished. It is a first rate example of the term "boondoggle".