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Award-winning Houston chef reemerges in our top 5 stories of the week

Latuli is now open in Memorial.

Photo by Frank Frances

Editor's note: It's time to look back at the top Houston news of the week. An acclaimed chef is back, and Texas' best barbecue sizzles. Plus, is I-45 a "freeway without a future"? Get the details on our five most popular stories below, then visit this guide to plan the rest of your weekend.

1. Award-winning Houston chef reemerges with new Memorial restaurant. Bryan Caswell is back. Six years after closing Reef, the celebrated chef has opened Latuli in Houston’s upscale Memorial neighborhood.

2. Pioneering Mexican chef and chic speakeasy popping up at Houston hotel. Houston diners won’t need a passport to explore Mexico’s culinary capital this summer. In August, the Four Seasons Hotel Houston will host "From Oaxaca, With Love," a five-course experience featuring acclaimed chef Alejandro Ruiz of Casa Oaxaca.

3. 7 Houston-area barbecue joints make Texas Monthly's new top 50 list. The state has a new No. 1 BBQ joint, according to this hotly anticipated list, which was released this week.

4. Activist group calls out Houston highway as a 'freeway without a future'. A national nonprofit organization advocating for the removal of freeways across the country has named the Interstate 45 expansion in Houston on its 2025 list of "freeways without futures."

I-45 in Houston is one of nine freeways where the infrastructure is "nearing the end of its functional life." Photo courtesy of Getty Images

5. Two top 10 pitmasters react to Texas Monthly's new top 50 barbecue list. On this week’s episode of “What’s Eric Eating,” CultureMap editor Eric Sandler is joined by three special guest to discuss Texas Monthly’s new list.

eyes on the road

5 Houston highways rank among deadliest roads in America, per report

Photo courtesy of TXDOT

I-45 is in the hotseat again.

Heads up to Houstonians commuting on the city's freeways: Five busy Harris County highways were just deemed among the deadliest roads in the country, with I-45 in Houston ranking as the deadliest road in Texas. That's according to a new study based on the latest National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) data.

The study, commissioned by Santa Ana, California-based company Future Bail Bonds, compared fatal crash data across 96,000 U.S. roads from 2019-2023. The top 150 "deadliest" roads were ranked by the total number of fatal crashes that occurred during the five-year period.

The No. 1 deadliest road in America is I-15 in San Bernardino County, California, the study found. The interstate, which runs from Southern California to Las Vegas, experienced the highest rate of deadly car crashes from 2019-2023 with 196 crashes.

For comparison, I-45 in Houston had 88 fatal vehicle wrecks during the same time period to rank as the 16th deadliest U.S. road and No. 1 deadliest in Texas. Considering that tens of thousands of people drive the road every day, a fatal crash is relatively unlikely, but the data underscores the need for drivers to remain aware of their surroundings at all times.

The crowded highway stretches from Dallas to Galveston, and the I-45 North Freeway earned its own spot on the list as the 124th deadliest U.S. road. I-45N experienced 44 deadly crashes between 2019 and 2023, the report said. I-45's controversial expansion project between downtown Houston and the north Sam Houston Tollway (and portions of connecting freeways) also earned it a new reputation as a "freeway without a future" by the activist group Congress for the New Urbanism.

Elsewhere in Harris County, I-10 ranked as the 22nd deadliest U.S. highway on the list with 76 fatal crashes during the five-year span. It was dubbed the third most fatal Texas highway, with I-35 in Austin splitting up the two Houston roads as the second deadliest statewide.

"From 2019 to 2023, motor vehicle crashes claimed 186,284 lives across 96,257 roads in the United States, underscoring the persistent danger on American roadways," the report said.

Two more Houston highways ranked much farther down the report, but still remained among the top 150 deadliest U.S. roads: FM 1960 ranked 114th on the list with 45 fatal crashes, and I-610 ranked No. 131 with 43 fatal crashes.

Nine other Texas roads that were deemed the deadliest in America with the highest rates of fatal vehicle crashes from 2019-2023 include:

No. 23 – I-30 in Dallas County (76 crashes)
No. 27 – I-410 in Bexar County (73 crashes)
No. 32 – I-10 in El Paso County (69 crashes)
No. 63 – I-20 in Tarrant County (56 crashes)
No. 66 – I-820 in Tarrant County (55 crashes)
No. 115 – SR-12 in Dallas County (45 crashes)
No. 130 – I-35 in Bexar County (43 crashes)
No. 132 – I-635 in Dallas County (43 crashes)
No. 141 – I-10 in Jefferson County (42 crashes)

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