I-35 through Austin is one of the most congested stretches of road in the country. You can pretty much count on traffic on I-35 through downtown almost any time of day, any day of the week. Rush hour is a disaster, but it's the off-peak hour congestion that frustrates me because that shouldn't really exist if we had proper infrastructure. For a time Austin city council had a mindset of "if we don't build it, people will stop coming." that has not worked and now Austin is way, way behind where they should be given the size of the city. And there's no end in sight, we continue to grow very rapidly.
I think you're overlooking that several Texas metro areas are among the fastest-growing parts of the US and have been for some time. I have no doubt that poor infrastructure planning impacts many areas, but it's hitting parts of Texas worse than most. Austin has been on a list of "fastest-growing cities" for probably 20 years and running. The stats show that our metro area population grows by ~150+ people per day. Several years ago I read that that Austin population is on pace to double every decade. Since I've lived here (16 years) the city has gone from ~#25 in population to #11 in the country. This type of growth is not common in many other cities, and it's been sustained here for a long time now. Our highways have had minimal improvements in the past 16 years and we have terrible public transportation options. Austin is going to be screwed if they don't get their act together. It's going to take a massive project costing billions of dollars to correct the lack of planning over the past 20+ years.
