Houston drives to top of list of Texas cities for worst traffic congestion

slow moving

According to a report, Houston traffic is actually the worst. Local.AllState.com

Honk if you hate Houston traffic. According to a new study, you’re more than justified in laying on the horn to express frustration over Houston’s clogged roads.

The study, released by geolocation technology company TomTom, shows the typical Houston driver wasted 46 hours last year due to traffic congestion. Houston’s traffic congestion rate was 20 percent. This means average travel times in jammed-up traffic were 20 percent longer than they were in uncongested traffic.

While those figures alone highlight the drive-me-up-a-wall status of Houston commutes, what’s worse is that the city ranks first in Texas, No. 16 in the U.S., and No. 214 in the world for snarled traffic in 2021. The study says Houston’s traffic congestion went up 4 percent compared with 2020 but went down 4 percent compared with pre-pandemic 2019.

Where’s the worst of the worst traffic in Houston? According to Texas A&M Transportation Institute data published in December, the 610 West Loop was the state’s most congested stretch of roadway in 2020, trading places with I-35 in Austin, which held the top spot in 2019.

On top of that, Houston is home to 10 of the 14 worst trucking bottlenecks in Texas, according to an American Transportation Research Institute ranking released earlier this month. The absolute worst: I-45 at I-69 and U.S. Highway 59. The institute deemed that intersection the third worst trucking bottleneck in the country for 2021.

“Bottlenecks around the state continue to waste time and money, further damaging the already fragile supply chain,” John Esparza, president and CEO of the Texas Trucking Association, says in a news release. “With the newly available federal resources for infrastructure projects, there’s no excuse — these bottlenecks must be addressed. A reliable and stable transportation network is essential to our economy — just like the trucking industry.”

Here’s how other major Texas cities fared in the TomTom study:

  • McAllen ranked second in Texas, 18th in the U.S., and 218th in the world for traffic congestion. Time wasted in traffic last year for a typical driver: 46 hours. Congestion rate: 20 percent. Congestion up 4 percent from 2020 and up 1 percent from 2019.
  • Austin ranked third in Texas, 21st in the U.S., and 221st in the world for traffic congestion. Time wasted in traffic last year for a typical driver: 46 hours. Congestion rate: 20 percent. Congestion up 2 percent from 2020 and down 7 percent from 2019.
  • Dallas-Fort Worth ranked fourth in Texas, 37th in the U.S., and 305th in the world for traffic congestion. Time wasted in traffic last year for a typical driver: 39 hours. Congestion rate: 17 percent. Congestion up 4 percent from 2020 but down 2 percent from 2019.=
  • San Antonio ranked fifth in Texas, 41st in the U.S., and 318th in the world for traffic congestion. Time wasted in traffic last year for a typical driver: 36 hours. Congestion rate: 16 percent. Congestion up 3 percent from 2020 and down 3 percent from 2019.
  • El Paso ranked sixth in Texas, 44th in the U.S., and 324th in the world for traffic congestion. Time wasted in traffic last year for a typical driver: 36 hours. Congestion rate: 16 percent. Congestion up 4 percent from 2020 and the same as 2019.

Not surprisingly, the TomTom study awards New York City the title of the worst-congested place in the country. In 2021, the typical New York driver wasted 80 hours in traffic, with a 35 percent congestion rate.

Racking up a congestion rate of 62 percent last year, Istanbul, Turkey, claimed the title of the world’s worst city for traffic. There, motorists wasted 142 hours in traffic in 2021.

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This article originally ran on CultureMap.

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Houston VC funding surged in 2024, fueled by major Q4 activity

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The venture capital haul for Houston-area startups jumped 23 percent from 2023 to 2024, according to the latest PitchBook-NVCA Venture Monitor.

The fundraising total for startups in the region climbed from $1.49 billion in 2023 to $1.83 billion in 2024, PitchBook-NVCA Venture Monitor data shows.

Roughly half of the 2024 sum, $914.3 million, came in the fourth quarter. By comparison, Houston-area startups collected $291.3 million in VC during the fourth quarter of 2023.

Among the Houston-area startups contributing to the impressive VC total in the fourth quarter of 2024 was geothermal energy startup Fervo Energy. PitchBook attributes $634 million in fourth-quarter VC to Fervo, with fulfillment services company Cart.com at $50 million, and chemical manufacturing platform Mstack and superconducting wire manufacturer MetOx International at $40 million each.

Across the country, VC deals total $209 billion in 2024, compared with $162.2 billion in 2023. Nearly half (46 percent) of all VC funding in North America last year went to AI startups, PitchBook says. PitchBook’s lead VC analyst for the U.S., Kyle Stanford, says that AI “continues to be the story of the market.”

PitchBook forecasts a “moderately positive” 2025 for venture capital in the U.S.

“That does not mean that challenges are gone. Flat and down rounds will likely continue at higher paces than the market is accustomed to. More companies will likely shut down or fall out of the venture funding cycle,” says PitchBook. “However, both of those expectations are holdovers from 2021.”

Justice Department sues to block Houston-based HPE's $14B buyout of Juniper

M&A News

The Justice Department sued to block Hewlett Packard Enterprise's $14 billion acquisition of rival Juniper Networks on Thursday, the first attempt to stop a merger by a new Trump administration that is expected to take a softer approach to mergers.

The Justice complaint alleges that Hewlett Packer Enterprise, under increased competitive pressure from the fast-rising Juniper, was forced to discount products and services and invest more in its own innovation, eventually leading the company to simply buy its rival.

The lawsuit said that the combination of businesses would eliminate competition, raise prices and reduce innovation.

HPE and Juniper issued a joint statement Thursday, saying the companies strongly oppose the DOJ's decision.

“We will vigorously defend against the Department of Justice’s overreaching interpretation of antitrust laws and will demonstrate how this transaction will provide customers with greater innovation and choice, positively change the dynamics in the networking market,” the companies said.

The combined company would create more competition, not less, the companies said.

The Justice Department's intervention — the first of the new administration and just 10 days after Donald Trump's inauguration — comes as somewhat of a surprise. Most predicted a second Trump administration to ease up on antitrust enforcement and be more receptive to mergers and deal-making after years of hypervigilance under former President Joe Biden’s watch.

Hewlett Packard Enterprise announced one year ago that it was buying Juniper Networks for $40 a share in a deal expected to double HPE’s networking business.

In its complaint, the government painted a picture of Hewlett Packard Enterprise as a company desperate to keep up with a smaller rival that was taking its business.

HPE salespeople were concerned about the “Juniper threat,” the complaint said, also alleging that one former executive told his team that “there are no rules in a street fight,” encouraging them to “kill” Juniper when competing for sales opportunities.

The Justice Department said that Hewlett Packard Enterprise and Juniper are the U.S.'s second- and third-largest providers of wireless local area network (WLAN) products and services for businesses.

“The proposed transaction between HPE and Juniper, if allowed to proceed, would further consolidate an already highly concentrated market — and leave U.S. enterprises facing two companies commanding over 70% of the market,” the complaint said, adding that Cisco Systems was the industry leader.

Many businesses and investors accused Biden regulatory agencies of antitrust overreach and were looking forward to a friendlier Trump administration.

Under Biden, the Federal Trade Commission sued to block a $24.6 billion merger between Kroger and Albertsons that would have been the largest grocery store merger in U.S. history. Two judges agreed with the FTC’s case, blocking the proposed deal in December.

In 2023, the Department of Justice, through the courts, forced American and JetBlue airlines to abandon their partnership in the northeast U.S., saying it would reduce competition and eventually cost consumers hundreds of millions of dollars a year. That partnership had the blessing of the Trump administration when it took effect in early 2021.

U.S. regulators also proposed last year to break up Google for maintaining an “abusive monopoly” through its market-dominate search engine, Chrome. Court hearings on Google’s punishment are scheduled to begin in April, with the judge aiming to issue a final decision before Labor Day. It’s unclear where the Trump administration stands on the case.

One merger that both Trump and Biden agreed shouldn’t go through is Nippon Steel’s proposed acquisition of U.S. Steel. Biden blocked the nearly $15 billion acquisition just before his term ended. The companies challenged that decision in a federal lawsuit early this year.

Trump has consistently voiced opposition to the deal, questioning why U.S. Steel would sell itself to a foreign company given the regime of new tariffs he has vowed.

Houston space company lands latest NASA deal to advance lunar logistics

To The Moon

Houston-based space exploration, infrastructure, and services company Intuitive Machines has secured about $2.5 million from NASA to study challenges related to carrying cargo on the company’s lunar lander and hauling cargo on the moon. The lander will be used for NASA’s Artemis missions to the moon and eventually to Mars.

“Intuitive Machines has been methodically working on executing lunar delivery, data transmission, and infrastructure service missions, making us uniquely positioned to provide strategies and concepts that may shape lunar logistics and mobility solutions for the Artemis generation,” Intuitive Machines CEO Steve Altemus says in a news release.

“We look forward to bringing our proven expertise together to deliver innovative solutions that establish capabilities on the [moon] and place deeper exploration within reach.”

Intuitive Machines will soon launch its lunar lander on a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket to deliver NASA technology and science projects, along with commercial payloads, to the moon’s Mons Mouton plateau. Lift-off will happen at NASA’s Kennedy Space Center in Florida within a launch window that starts in late February. It’ll be the lander’s second trip to the moon.

In September, Intuitive Machines landed a deal with NASA that could be worth more than $4.8 billion.

Under the contract, Intuitive Machines will supply communication and navigation services for missions in the “near space” region, which extends from the earth’s surface to beyond the moon.

The five-year deal includes an option to add five years to the contract. The initial round of NASA funding runs through September 2029.

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