reasons to work from home

Houston stuck at No. 7 on new list of U.S. cities with the worst traffic

Courtesy photo

Houston is heading in the wrong direction when it comes to terrible traffic.

In ConsumerAffairs’ 2025 ranking of U.S. metro areas with the worst traffic, the Houston area is parked at No. 7, up from No. 11 last year. ConsumerAffairs analyzed three sets of data — average commute time, daily hours of traffic congestion and rate of fatal car crashes — to rank the 50 largest metros based on population.

Here’s how Houston fared in this year’s ranking:

Average commute time of 29.8 minutes, unchanged from last year.
Five hours and 48 minutes of weekday traffic congestion, up 27 percent from last year.
10.7 fatal car crashes per 100,000 people, down 23.3 percent from last year.

“For motorists, prolonged time on the road increases the risk of accidents, particularly for motorcyclists who navigate between lanes in slow-moving traffic — [an illegal] practice known as lane splitting,” according to Houston-based personal injury law firm Ben Bronston & Associates.

Being stuck in so much traffic might prompt people to drive too fast to make up time, which is a bad idea considering Texas ranks as the fourth most expensive state in America for speeding tickets. The Houston area is also home to five roads ranked among the most deadly in America.

Making matters worse for Houston drivers, the nonprofit Congress for the New Urbanism placed the I-45 expansion in Houston on its 2025 list of “freeways without futures.” I-45 was cited as one of nine U.S. freeways where the infrastructure is “nearing the end of its functional life.”

Houston is no stranger to rankings of places with bad traffic.

The Global Traffic Scorecard released last year by Inrix found the average Houston drive lost 62 hours to traffic delays in 2023, putting it in eighth place among cities with the worst traffic. On the scorecard, Dallas ranked 17th, Austin ranked 21st, and San Antonio ranked 25th.

Dallas-Fort Worth, Austin, and San Antonio appeared in the same order on this year’s ConsumerAffairs list:

Dallas-Fort Worth ranked 14th, up one spot from last year. In DFW, weekday congestion time rose 27.6 percent to four hours and 47 minutes. Meanwhile, average commute time barely budged compared with last year (0.4 percent), and the rate of fatal car crashes plummeted 37.5 percent.
Austin ranked 15th, up two spots from last year. Austin saw weekday congestion time climb 22.4 percent to four hours and 50 minutes, while average commute time inched up by 2.9 percent and the rate of fatal car crashes dipped 4.5 percent.
San Antonio ranked 24th, up three spots from last year. Weekday congestion time in San Antonio jumped 13.5 percent to three hours and 38 minutes. Meanwhile, average commute time went up less than one percent and the rate of fatal car crashes fell 13.7 percent.

“Congestion is oftentimes a sign of economic prosperity,” Michael Manville, an urban planning professor at UCLA’s Luskin School of Public Affairs, told ConsumerAffairs. “Because we don’t do anything to regulate access, the roads in an area with a booming economy become overloaded and congested.”

Here are the top cities with the worst traffic, according to the study:

Washington, D.C.
Los Angeles, CA
Miami, FL
San Francisco, CA
Atlanta, GA
New York, NY
Houston, TX
Seattle, WA
Baltimore, MD
San Jose, CA

traffic lists

Texas tragedy

Camp Mystic halts reopening plan after outrage by families, lawmakers

Memorial Service Held For Young Camper Killed In Hill Country Floods

Photo by Ron Jenkins/Getty Images

Pink and green bows signifying a young camper who was lost in the Hill Country floods.

AUSTIN, Texas (AP) — Camp Mystic on Thursday, April 30 halted reopening plans on the Texas river where floodwaters killed 25 girls and two teenage counselors, backing down in the face of outraged families and investigations that accused the all-girls Christian camp of dangerous safety and operational deficiencies.

The decision, a striking reversal of the camp owners' determination to reopen, follows weeks of testimony in court hearings and legislative investigations. Those hearings laid bare the camp’s lack of detailed planning for a flood emergency, reliance on poorly trained staff, and missed chances for an evacuation that came too late as floodwaters ripped through the camp over the July 4 weekend last year.

“We never imagined a world without our daughters, and no decision made now can change that," Matthew Childress, father of 18-year-old counselor Chloe Childress who died, said in a statement.

The camp’s owner, Dick Eastland, also died in the flooding.

“No administrative process or summer season should move forward while families continue to grieve, while investigations continue and while so many Texans still carry the pain of last July’s tragedy,” Camp Mystic said in a statement.

A spokesperson for the Texas Department of State Health Services confirmed Thursday that the camp has withdrawn its application.

The decision was praised by Texas Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick, who opposed the camp's reopening while investigations were ongoing.

“I am thankful to hear that, today, the Eastland family withdrew their application,” Patrick said in a statement. “Given the tragic circumstances, this is the correct decision to protect Texas campers and to allow time for all investigations to be completed.”

The families of the victims packed the court and legislative hearings, often wearing “Heaven’s 27” pins with photographs of their daughters. They listened to the details of missed flood warning signs, the descriptions of the flood and the decision to leave the girls in their cabins until it was too late. The testimony included video of the raging floodwaters as a girl repeatedly screamed for “help!” somewhere in the distance.

Edward Eastland, one of the camp directors and a member of the Eastland family that owns and operates the 100-year-old camp on the banks of the Guadalupe River, offered a tearful public apology to the victims’ families on Tuesday.

“We tried our hardest that night. It wasn’t enough to save your daughters,” Eastland said, with the victims' families sitting behind him. “I’m so sorry.”

All told, the destructive flooding killed at least 136 people along a several-mile stretch of the river, raising questions about how things went so terribly wrong.

Texas health regulators have said they are investigating hundreds of complaints against the camp's owners. The Texas Rangers are also looking into allegations of neglect, according to the Texas Department of Safety, although the scope of the state’s elite investigations unit was not immediately clear.

The camp, established in 1926, did not evacuate as the storm rolled in and was hit hard when the river rose from 14 feet (4.2 meters) to 29.5 feet (9 meters) within 60 minutes.

summer camp politics texas weather texas flood