Just add more lanes! I swear it'll work, not because of increased capacity- eventually there will just be so much freeway and so little stuff left to actually drive to that the problem will be fixed!
I'm from Dallas and we definitely have a lot of heavy traffic and tons of big freeways, but that Katy Freeway looks like an absolute nightmare, and it just goes on and on and on. I've never in my life seen anything like that.
*"Just build one more lane, bro! I promise it will work this time! Just one more lane! One more lane, bro! We're going to fix traffic with just one more lane!"*
from a Dutch perspective: why do i not see "matrix-signs". electronical signs above the highway where temporary speed limits can be showed on, and arrows and a cross (for when there is a lane closed). in the Netherlands this helps a lot to keep traffic moving. DRIPs(DynamicRouteInformationPanels) just electronical signs with text on it that can change also can work
As far as I'm aware, temporary speed limits aren't really a "thing" in the U.S., aside from maybe a reduced speed limit at night. And if it is, Houston certainly wouldn't have them. This city is pretty much a case study in what not to do for urban planning. The only "matrix-signs" I've seen on the freeways in the Houston area just tell you estimated travel times to certain destinations and warn you about congestion due to accidents.
@@IBeforeAExceptAfterK the temporary speed limits can help to avoid traffic jams. In the Netherlands it works like this: there are cables in the road to measure how much traffic is going over them, and the speed that cars go. That information goes to the matrix signs. So When the cars are going about 45mph, the matrix signs show an temporary speed limit of 45mph. If every one stays under the temporary limit, the changes to get an traffic jam are reduced by 20%.
@@CasperGamess I figured it would be something like that. Sadly, Houston has notoriously terrible urban planning and transportation infrastructure, so of course it wouldn't have something like temporary speed limits. Anything that even superficially slows down traffic doesn't get approved even if it would actually help in the long run, and anything that looks like it _might_ improve congestion on first glance gets built even if history has shown that it'll just make things worse. Houston is a damned shrine to the short-sighted worship of the automobile.
They have variable speed limits in Washington State. They use them in the mountains during poor weather and in the Puget Sound to reduce the chances of cars driving 70 mph suddenly hitting a wall of stopped traffic. They cut accidents by 33% in the first year of use.
i would travel this Katy Freeway when it was just 6 main lanes, back in the 80s to early 90s most freeways out past Loop 610 would be 6 main lanes and majority of the towns were seperated by fields...now Houston swallowed all that open land with businesses...now 2020 its 7 million in population and counting. Ah my little town has grown up...and still remember having fun in the rides at Astro World and Water World....fun times
funny thing is, I live in Hamburg (second largest city in germany, 2 Mio. people) and commute everyday (rushhour. single trip is 21km for aboout 35min) and I am usually only in traffic for 5 minutes. (because of obvious reasons like public transport, bike lanes etc.). Its possible!
Anyone remember the original Katy freeway BEFORE the railroad track that paralleled it was removed? I heard the train was the reason for the traffic jams on the freeway. Slow 10 MPH trains down the line. The track is obviously long gone to expand the freeway in the early 2000s so there are no traces of it left.
@@IBeforeAExceptAfterK LMAO well my fellow learner, the original railroad path was only feet from the service road and when a train would cross that roadway people needing to crossover the tracks had to wait. Making for a backup of traffic onto the highway from the exit.
@@nicholasfu5937 almost any European country is far more liveable than the States any day of the week. Most of the cities aren't so heavily geared towards car users, and instead rely on a healthy number of alternative methods of transport, be it cycling or public transport. I always say it like this. As a kid, I would've loved to live in America. As an adult, I am glad not to have been cursed with that nightmare.
oh wow a flat city with virtually unlimited space to grow has less traffic than a city with a bunch of mountains and thus limited space for lanes??? so shocking!
Everybody old enough for a license has one and usually has a car except in a few places like San Francisco and NYC. But those cities have enough taxis and ubers to almost make up for it.
Also, aside from the 4-lane Westpark Tollway to the south, there are few parallel routes to the Katy Freeway. The Addicks (north of I-10) and Barker (south of I-10) reservoirs prevent the existence of a large number of cross-streets between the far west suburbs (Katy area) and Beltway 8. The Westpark Tollway goes to the south of the Barker Reservoir. The Energy Corridor and the Katy Freeway threads the needle between the two reservoirs. Basically this makes the Katy Freeway the only viable commuting route from the Katy area to points east, meaning that a lot of traffic gets funneled into I-10. It is important to note that these two reservoirs are not permanent lakes (and can be dry), so there are a couple of roads that cross them, especially the Addicks Reservoir. But these roads are subject to flooding. The reservoirs are intended to prevent flooding further downstream on the Buffalo Bayou (eg. Memorial area, downtown Houston), but during Hurricane Harvey, some of the water actually backed up in the reservoirs and flooded upstream neighborhoods in the Katy area. Harvey would have been a much worse disaster if the Addicks and/or Barker dams failed; some of the flooding that occurred in the Memorial area was due to controlled releases of water to prevent dam failure, I believe. There are more parallel streets east of Beltway 8, but the Memorial area immediately adjacent to I-10 does not have any good east-west parallel route (and the residents would not want one).
In case anyone is wondering, the cause of traffic congestion seen in this video is caused by the Katy toll lanes ending and forcing the majority of single car use into the westbound main lanes. That causes a merge taper effect (despite the ramp having a medicated lane) forcing traffic to slowdown to deal with the Katy toll traffic and causing a traffic j that extends from Hwy 6 all the way to then Bingle Rd. As a result of a 2018 lane configuration change in the bottleneck area, the traffic jam has shifted ~2 miles west - now only reaching Bunker Hill Rd. This was because the choke point was moved also 2 miles west, notice, the traffic jam retained length (~8 miles) but moved further away from the city.
Currently I’m preparing several diagrammatic explanations as to why the freeways still have traffic issues despite expansions and may well extend into a video in the future to better understand Houston’s freeways.
@@WhiteOut- unless you put 1 ramp for each 4 lanes (Basically 1 ramp in the right,one in the middle,one in the left on a 12 lane highway) But that would be a safety hazard
The most inefficient mindset I have ever seen. By the way, what is that central lane which seems to be clearer than the others? Apparently USA society has special preferences for some sector of its population. You need to think as a collective: the right way to manage transportation in a city/rural area/country/region is to defend pedestrians, bicycles and specially public massive transportation such as Buses and Trains, that is the sustainable way of developing transport infrastructure, NOT MORE FREEWAYS OR LANES. The style of infrastructure that USA has reflects the huge egotism of the people. Using a car as a mean of transportation for everybody just has no solution. The real solution is collective approach and bicycle of course.
@@nicholasfu5937 thanks for responding!... Not a smart idea at all, still car-centric. The only lane that should be free and exclusive is a lane for massive transportation (buses) and ambulances.
@@nicholasfu5937 I'm saying there must be more exclusive lanes for public massive transportation, and less for cars, in order to fix a lot of society's problems. As simple as that.
Lol this is nothing and a such a small freeway compared to canadas freeway. Search up toronto 401 freeway its larger and wider and gets worse during traffic.
@@hitechredneck6366 The frontage roads are what makes the Katy wider (lane-wise), I believe. Most places (to my knowledge) don't use frontage roads so most counts of lanes should probably exclude frontage lanes.
Those that are saying oh put trains, no you can't do that Houston is way to massive. Houston is way bigger than LA in area, and LA has an area of 500 miles Square. Guys Houston sprawls out to 667 miles Squareas of 2022, about to hit 700 miles square because the city wants to keep growing and sprawling. So you can't put trains because that's also putting millions of dollars in construction. Where it should be fixing roads and highways, building more houses because more people believe it are moving to Houston, and businesses. So a train won't help its the same amount of money and same amount of time. Does not make sense none of you know cause everyone hates on Houston. Those who aren't from Houston shut up you don't live here! Move to Houston then we can talk. Comments are interesting everytime I read em.
Tokyo has the largest Metro Area with a population larger than the entirety of Texas yet only 12% of the population uses car. The remaining 88% walks, bikes or uses public transportation.
bc idiots keep building stupid single family housing on 1 acre lots or whatever, without any mixed use development or whatsoever, if they actually hired planners who knew what they were doing the city would have the same population in half the size
Tokyo is the biggest urban area in the world and can do it, there's just no excuse. Cities cannot carry on like this, no ifs no buts. I have no patience for apologists of this sort of infrastructure
True, L.A. is pretty big and spread out, but it's limited in size because of mountains to the north and ocean to the west. I'm from Dallas (DFW metro is also Huge!), and when I visited Los Angeles for the first time a couple of years ago, it felt somewhat familiar and not that big of a deal as far as size is concerned. In fact, I could tell that it was definitely smaller in land area than DFW, but more compact, and the freeways were in general kind of old and narrow, and lots of traffic but I'm used to that already.
This clearly needs more lanes!
More lanes more traffic. Cause people dont know which lane they suppose to take 😂😂😂
@@PhoenixTun it was sarcastic
@@Lunavii_Cellest lol 😂😂
YESS THE GREAT MURICAN WAY OF ROAD!
MOAAAAR LANNNESSSS!!!!!!!
At this point they should turn the Kate freeway into a tollway 😭
The view of the Katy Freeway from the drone really puts a new, interesting perspective on the scale of the freeway 😌
This is just sad.
Just add more lanes! I swear it'll work, not because of increased capacity- eventually there will just be so much freeway and so little stuff left to actually drive to that the problem will be fixed!
I'm from Dallas and we definitely have a lot of heavy traffic and tons of big freeways, but that Katy Freeway looks like an absolute nightmare, and it just goes on and on and on. I've never in my life seen anything like that.
i think if you widen this to 75 lanes and make the speed 250 kmh it will flow well
"75" that's rookie numbers, brother, try about 350 lanes at 750 k/ph, it'll work like a charm
*"Just build one more lane, bro! I promise it will work this time! Just one more lane! One more lane, bro! We're going to fix traffic with just one more lane!"*
"it's gonna fix jams and improve efficiency. Surely those 17 billion dollars will be worth it"
I would prefer to take a neighborhood Road parallel to the Katy fwy during Rush Hour
from a Dutch perspective: why do i not see "matrix-signs". electronical signs above the highway where temporary speed limits can be showed on, and arrows and a cross (for when there is a lane closed). in the Netherlands this helps a lot to keep traffic moving.
DRIPs(DynamicRouteInformationPanels) just electronical signs with text on it that can change also can work
As far as I'm aware, temporary speed limits aren't really a "thing" in the U.S., aside from maybe a reduced speed limit at night. And if it is, Houston certainly wouldn't have them. This city is pretty much a case study in what not to do for urban planning. The only "matrix-signs" I've seen on the freeways in the Houston area just tell you estimated travel times to certain destinations and warn you about congestion due to accidents.
@@IBeforeAExceptAfterK the temporary speed limits can help to avoid traffic jams. In the Netherlands it works like this: there are cables in the road to measure how much traffic is going over them, and the speed that cars go. That information goes to the matrix signs. So When the cars are going about 45mph, the matrix signs show an temporary speed limit of 45mph. If every one stays under the temporary limit, the changes to get an traffic jam are reduced by 20%.
@@CasperGamess I figured it would be something like that. Sadly, Houston has notoriously terrible urban planning and transportation infrastructure, so of course it wouldn't have something like temporary speed limits. Anything that even superficially slows down traffic doesn't get approved even if it would actually help in the long run, and anything that looks like it _might_ improve congestion on first glance gets built even if history has shown that it'll just make things worse. Houston is a damned shrine to the short-sighted worship of the automobile.
Because of $$$
They have variable speed limits in Washington State. They use them in the mountains during poor weather and in the Puget Sound to reduce the chances of cars driving 70 mph suddenly hitting a wall of stopped traffic. They cut accidents by 33% in the first year of use.
I’m used to 2 or 3 lanes in Wisconsin wow.....
Let me build just one more lane, please! Just... One... More... Pretty please
i would travel this Katy Freeway when it was just 6 main lanes, back in the 80s to early 90s most freeways out past Loop 610 would be 6 main lanes and majority of the towns were seperated by fields...now Houston swallowed all that open land with businesses...now 2020 its 7 million in population and counting. Ah my little town has grown up...and still remember having fun in the rides at Astro World and Water World....fun times
JUST ONE MORE LANE I SWEAR TRUST ME
Frontage roads are wider than other U.S city highways
This makes me sad.
How this is really cool
@@PrivateMcPrivate no, it's a horrid urban wasteland
Katy Freeway is The World’s Widest Road
*freeway
@@AbelG8781 Subscribe Please
@@ainsleyfrastructurekpopmashups what?
@@AbelG8781 I am 298 Subscribers Now.
@@ainsleyfrastructurekpopmashups cool
On this Video you can clearly see that it needs just one more lane. 😂 Amerika the land of the free(-way)
And don't forget the toll only costs $0.70
Can't beat that.
Love the Katy freeway, should have shown the 5 level interchange 😍
You need to pay to use this?
@@lcberchtold1208 No, not at all.
Only if you want to use the toll lanes. (The left 2 lanes only)
It's free to use this freeway :)
It's only free if you have 2 or more people, otherwise you are paying the toll
Just one more lane
needs more nukes
And more lanes.
And more freedom.
And more McDonald's
funny thing is, I live in Hamburg (second largest city in germany, 2 Mio. people) and commute everyday (rushhour. single trip is 21km for aboout 35min) and I am usually only in traffic for 5 minutes. (because of obvious reasons like public transport, bike lanes etc.). Its possible!
Anyone remember the original Katy freeway BEFORE the railroad track that paralleled it was removed? I heard the train was the reason for the traffic jams on the freeway. Slow 10 MPH trains down the line. The track is obviously long gone to expand the freeway in the early 2000s so there are no traces of it left.
How the hell would a parallel train slow traffic? They're in different corridors.
@@IBeforeAExceptAfterK LMAO well my fellow learner, the original railroad path was only feet from the service road and when a train would cross that roadway people needing to crossover the tracks had to wait. Making for a backup of traffic onto the highway from the exit.
@@IBeforeAExceptAfterK choo choo is get ROW so it stop da car from merge
Every day I wake up
And I think
How great it is to not live in America
You poor
@@jespino2390 nope, just don't ever want to live in America. My country is far better.
@@pingu255 Yeah, I bet your country is a lot poorer than the US, come on, spit it out
@@nicholasfu5937 Ireland - a country with a GDP per capita $13,000 more than the USA's. 😄
@@nicholasfu5937 almost any European country is far more liveable than the States any day of the week. Most of the cities aren't so heavily geared towards car users, and instead rely on a healthy number of alternative methods of transport, be it cycling or public transport.
I always say it like this. As a kid, I would've loved to live in America. As an adult, I am glad not to have been cursed with that nightmare.
Still a lot better than L.A. traffic. At least it’s always moving
This was sped up by 4 times if you did not notice
@@jimitojavon8197 But moving unless there is a wreck
oh wow a flat city with virtually unlimited space to grow has less traffic than a city with a bunch of mountains and thus limited space for lanes??? so shocking!
Why US have so many cars/1000 people.
Because they can have them. This is like a 30 lane freeway on some parts. Mind-blowing
Everybody old enough for a license has one and usually has a car except in a few places like San Francisco and NYC. But those cities have enough taxis and ubers to almost make up for it.
Because the cities don't invest in public transportation.
If you live here in Katy, Tx. You need a car yes or yes, isn't a choice, is a need.
I've lived in NYC and you don't need a car over there, unless you live in Long island or any suburb around the city.
Because public transportations cost many $$$ for government put private car costs little $$$ for government
ECONOMICS lol
One more lane and it will be fixed, trust me!!!1!1!1!
Just one more lane bro
how do you have so many lanes and still have so much traffic lol
A A shit ton of people living in Houston’s suburbs
It's called induced demand.
Also, aside from the 4-lane Westpark Tollway to the south, there are few parallel routes to the Katy Freeway. The Addicks (north of I-10) and Barker (south of I-10) reservoirs prevent the existence of a large number of cross-streets between the far west suburbs (Katy area) and Beltway 8. The Westpark Tollway goes to the south of the Barker Reservoir.
The Energy Corridor and the Katy Freeway threads the needle between the two reservoirs. Basically this makes the Katy Freeway the only viable commuting route from the Katy area to points east, meaning that a lot of traffic gets funneled into I-10.
It is important to note that these two reservoirs are not permanent lakes (and can be dry), so there are a couple of roads that cross them, especially the Addicks Reservoir. But these roads are subject to flooding. The reservoirs are intended to prevent flooding further downstream on the Buffalo Bayou (eg. Memorial area, downtown Houston), but during Hurricane Harvey, some of the water actually backed up in the reservoirs and flooded upstream neighborhoods in the Katy area. Harvey would have been a much worse disaster if the Addicks and/or Barker dams failed; some of the flooding that occurred in the Memorial area was due to controlled releases of water to prevent dam failure, I believe.
There are more parallel streets east of Beltway 8, but the Memorial area immediately adjacent to I-10 does not have any good east-west parallel route (and the residents would not want one).
In case anyone is wondering, the cause of traffic congestion seen in this video is caused by the Katy toll lanes ending and forcing the majority of single car use into the westbound main lanes. That causes a merge taper effect (despite the ramp having a medicated lane) forcing traffic to slowdown to deal with the Katy toll traffic and causing a traffic j that extends from Hwy 6 all the way to then Bingle Rd.
As a result of a 2018 lane configuration change in the bottleneck area, the traffic jam has shifted ~2 miles west - now only reaching Bunker Hill Rd. This was because the choke point was moved also 2 miles west, notice, the traffic jam retained length (~8 miles) but moved further away from the city.
Currently I’m preparing several diagrammatic explanations as to why the freeways still have traffic issues despite expansions and may well extend into a video in the future to better understand Houston’s freeways.
Beautiful, could watch this all the time, Houston is amazing
☠ beautiful☠
>beautiful
this is your brain on industrial revolution
this place could use some ramp meters
Or commuter rail.
Ew no this is America in America we don't do that
@@IBeforeAExceptAfterK no in America we only do big fat trains
@@PrivateMcPrivate breh them single traffic lights are everywhere in LA.
MacDonald Cartier freeway or 401 in Toronto is wider and the busiest highway in North America
Ya the 401 is this wide and rammed all the time 😅
This is what you call traffic 😂
Amazing video, thanks for uploading. Can I use it for my project?
Sure.
You can keep that.
Rush hour,? It's always like that. Sure beats the old 6 lane freeway.
My favorite Papa Louie game
r/urbanhell
I would call this r/suburbanhell or r/fuckcars
@@jaken005 ew imagine hating on cars when they provide for like 80% of everything
@@PrivateMcPrivate 80% of wasted resources sounds right
@@PrivateMcPrivate only in america they do, in other countries there’s actual trains
dRIVE THERE ALL THE WAY from Monterrey MX, I think it has just too many EZ tg lanes, with one less EZ traffic will improve much better
More lanes doesn't equal better traffic. 2 EZ tag lanes does seem a lot though.
@@WhiteOut- unless you put 1 ramp for each 4 lanes
(Basically 1 ramp in the right,one in the middle,one in the left on a 12 lane highway)
But that would be a safety hazard
@@PrivateMcPrivate Yeah thats asking for crashes
When nobody knows the rules of the road, doesn't matter how many lanes you have
I love this
Wow. Intersections are not problem here. Drivers are. I have never seen before that many bad drivers on one place.
2 lanes here in SC 😘
Rip up the middle six lanes and extend the streetcar out to Katy.
Houstonians will be fitter and less reliant on their cars.
Beautiful.
Agreed
lmao
I hate rush hour
Jeffers Leinbach KKTK TPNG ATJR ATABC Me too, every one does.
Same!
And on Friday rush hour gets so bad
That’s cool asf I want to see this at night
You can build it in city skylines
The most inefficient mindset I have ever seen. By the way, what is that central lane which seems to be clearer than the others? Apparently USA society has special preferences for some sector of its population. You need to think as a collective: the right way to manage transportation in a city/rural area/country/region is to defend pedestrians, bicycles and specially public massive transportation such as Buses and Trains, that is the sustainable way of developing transport infrastructure, NOT MORE FREEWAYS OR LANES. The style of infrastructure that USA has reflects the huge egotism of the people. Using a car as a mean of transportation for everybody just has no solution. The real solution is collective approach and bicycle of course.
The center lanes are the toll/HOV lanes. It's free if you have 2 or more people in the car.
@@nicholasfu5937 thanks for responding!... Not a smart idea at all, still car-centric. The only lane that should be free and exclusive is a lane for massive transportation (buses) and ambulances.
@@movilistica So you're just proposing a toll road then? There are tons of toll roads in Texas...
@@nicholasfu5937 I'm saying there must be more exclusive lanes for public massive transportation, and less for cars, in order to fix a lot of society's problems. As simple as that.
@@movilistica The people that move out to the suburbs *will not* take mass transit. It's self selecting.
I guess if you don't own a car you're not a human being.
I fucking hate this, this why I speed like a mf
aurelia
Lol this is nothing and a such a small freeway compared to canadas freeway. Search up toronto 401 freeway its larger and wider and gets worse during traffic.
That is incorrect, sir. The 401 is not wider. It may have higher DT counts, but it's certainly not wider.
@@hitechredneck6366 The frontage roads are what makes the Katy wider (lane-wise), I believe. Most places (to my knowledge) don't use frontage roads so most counts of lanes should probably exclude frontage lanes.
Brandon Claridge I mean Toronto has those collectors and express system so you can count the frontage as a collector
small freeway or not a lot of cars
Yes they count the frontage roads on the Katy
Those that are saying oh put trains, no you can't do that Houston is way to massive. Houston is way bigger than LA in area, and LA has an area of 500 miles Square. Guys Houston sprawls out to 667 miles Squareas of 2022, about to hit 700 miles square because the city wants to keep growing and sprawling. So you can't put trains because that's also putting millions of dollars in construction. Where it should be fixing roads and highways, building more houses because more people believe it are moving to Houston, and businesses. So a train won't help its the same amount of money and same amount of time. Does not make sense none of you know cause everyone hates on Houston. Those who aren't from Houston shut up you don't live here! Move to Houston then we can talk. Comments are interesting everytime I read em.
Tokyo has the largest Metro Area with a population larger than the entirety of Texas yet only 12% of the population uses car. The remaining 88% walks, bikes or uses public transportation.
bc idiots keep building stupid single family housing on 1 acre lots or whatever, without any mixed use development or whatsoever, if they actually hired planners who knew what they were doing the city would have the same population in half the size
Tokyo is the biggest urban area in the world and can do it, there's just no excuse. Cities cannot carry on like this, no ifs no buts. I have no patience for apologists of this sort of infrastructure
True, L.A. is pretty big and spread out, but it's limited in size because of mountains to the north and ocean to the west. I'm from Dallas (DFW metro is also Huge!), and when I visited Los Angeles for the first time a couple of years ago, it felt somewhat familiar and not that big of a deal as far as size is concerned. In fact, I could tell that it was definitely smaller in land area than DFW, but more compact, and the freeways were in general kind of old and narrow, and lots of traffic but I'm used to that already.
ni en cities skylines