Here's how far Houston's robust population of 'super commuters' drive to and from work every day

on the road again

Nearly 80,000 workers in the Houston area travel at least 90 minutes each way for their jobs. Photo via Getty Images

If you’re a workday commuter in the Houston metro area, you may be among the many motorists who’ve cursed the snarled traffic on I-610/West Loop Freeway. This route routinely takes the crown as the most clogged roadway in Texas.

But imagine if you were one of the nearly 80,000 workers in the Houston area who travel at least 90 minutes each way for their jobs. That’s an even more gripe-worthy commuting scenario.

U.S. Census Bureau data gathered by Apartment List shows that as of 2022 in the Houston area, 79,645 workers were tagged as “super commuters.” These workers represent three percent of all commuters in the region.

The Houston area’s 2022 number is down slightly from the pre-pandemic year of 2019, when 82,878 workers across the region were super commuters, according to Apartment List.

Igor Popov, chief economist at Apartment List, says 3.7 million American workers spent at least 90 minutes traveling each way for their jobs in 2022. These extreme commutes are becoming more commonplace as suburban populations rise and employers pull back on remote work, he says.

Nationally, the number of super commuters jumped by 593,000 in 2022 compared with 2021, when the pandemic caused the figure to plummet by more than 1.5 million.

“Generally, super commuting is most common for transit users, workers who live on the fringes of the metropolitan area, or those who commute to separate metros entirely,” Popov says.

Super commuting is also common among high-income workers who are willing to travel longer distances for higher-wage jobs, according to Popov.

A recent study by Stanford University and travel data provider INRIX mostly aligns with the Census Bureau data cited by Apartment List.

Since the pandemic, the study says, the share of one-way commutes covering at least 40 miles has gone up in the country’s 10 largest metros, including Houston. In the Houston area, the share of one-way super commutes, which the study defines as those over 75 miles, grew 18 percent from 2019-20 to 2023-24.

Among the 10 areas examined in the study, a typical two-way super commute lasts nearly four hours and 40 minutes.

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Here's how the Bayou City ranks on list comparing longest commute times. Photo by Manuel Velasquez on Unsplash

Houston gets a surprising brake on new list of U.S. cities with worst commute

tick, tock

Given the continuous gridlock Houston drivers face, it would be safe to assume our fair city faces the worst commute time in Texas and the even the nation. Not so.

A new report by SmartAsset ranks a surprising Texas city as the worst in the Lone Star State for commute time: Garland. The north Texas city ranked No. 3 in the nation for longest commute time, according to the SmartAsset survey.

Garland ranked No. 3 worst, only out-trafficked by two California cities — Stockton and Bakersfield — which came in first and second, respectively. (Another shocker: Los Angeles didn't lead the list, which landed at No. 25.)

Houston doesn't appear until much further down the list at No. 23 — tied with Dallas. The average commute time in Houston is 26.1 minutes, while 5.8 percent of Houstonians face a "severe" commute of 60 minutes or more. Houstonians spend a tiny bit more of their income on transportation costs than Dallas drivers do (9.9 percent vs. 9 percent). In Dallas, the average commute time in Dallas is 25.7 minutes; 6.5 percent of Dallasites face a "severe" commute.

The only other Texas city to land in the top 10 is El Paso, which comes in seventh. The city ranks second overall for transportation costs relative to income, with commuters paying 14.13 percent of their median household income for transportation in the city and surrounding areas, SmartAsset says.

Elsewhere in Texas, city rankings were:

  • Arlington, No. 33
  • Fort Worth, No. 47
  • Irving, No. 50
  • Plano, No. 52
  • San Antonio, No. 55
  • Lubbock, No. 61
  • Austin, No. 64
  • Corpus Christi, No. 78
  • Laredo, No. 81

Interestingly, SmartAsset notes, despite the rise in remote work the past few years, the average commute time went down by only one minute in five years. The national average decreased from 26.6 minutes in 2016 to 25.6 minutes in 2021, they say, while the percentage of remote workers has tripled in about half the time.

"Workers in 2023 will average almost 222 hours (or a little over nine days) driving to and from work," the report says. "And these hours spent in transit cost commuters more than just their time. The price of fuel, public transit passes and other commuter-related costs can add up quickly."

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This article originally ran on CultureMap.

Here's how much time Houstonians spend in traffic. Photo via Getty Images

Report: Houstonians lose days-worth of time each year due to rush hour

not in the fast lane

Traffic is a part of life in Houston. But a new study quantifies just how much time the average Bayou City dweller spends sitting in rush hour gridlock every year—and the results are eye opening.

According to a study released this month by CoPilot, Houstonians lose nearly four days of time each year due to rush hour commuting.

The report found that rush hour extends Houstonians' commute by an extra 22 minutes per day. Annually, that totaled an additional 91.6 hours commuting due to rush hour.

This earned the Houston area (including the Woodlands and Sugar Land) a No. 8 spot on CoPilot's list of cities where commuters lose the most time to rush hour.

Evening commutes saw the highest increase in time in Houston, with the average commuter spending 14 additional minutes on roadways due to rush hour. Morning rush hour in Houston added about eight minutes to commuters' daily drives.

Houston was the only Texas city to make CoPilot's list of the top 15 cities that lost the most time to rush hour traffic. New York drivers lost the most time to rush hour, which adds about 32 minutes to daily commutes and 132 hours a year, according to the report. Los Angeles drivers lost the second-most time, followed by urban Honolulu, Miami, Baton Rouge, Louisiana; and Birmingham, Alabama.

The report found that drivers in Houston spend about eight more minutes commuting during rush hour than the average driver in the county. That totals to about 30 more hours per year than the average U.S. driver.

Commute times have been dropping nationally, reaching a low of 25.6 minutes in 2021 compared to 27.6 minutes in 2019, as more workers have transitioned to hybrid schedules or working from home, according to CoPilot

In 2020, Houston drivers even witnessed a 33 percent drop in traffic compared to in 2019, according to a study from Rice.

Still, Houston roadways are consistently ranked among the most congested in the country. Last year, a similar study found that the typical Houston driver wasted 46 hours due to traffic congestion.

Portions of the 610 West Loop are notorious for being ranked as the state's most congested roadways, and other stretches of roads are known as some of the worst bottlenecks in Texas.

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

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

slow moving

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.

The city of Alpharetta, Georgia, is utilizing the chipset to improve response times by their fire department, while Houston has deployed 500 chips across the city's school zones. Photo by Eileen Falkenberg-Hull

New next-gen technology in Houston is enhancing vehicle navigation

Traffic control

The dawn of smart cities is upon us, using the internet of things to solve both big and little problems. In Georgia, Texas, and Hawaii, a new technology is being used that will ease traffic woes for public safety vehicles.

The technology uses dual mode chipsets by Israel-based Autotalks that are installed in roadside units, such as traffic control boxes. Autotalks has teamed up with Applied Information Inc., an Alpharetta, Georgia-based provider of intelligent transportation infrastructure solutions, to provide traffic signal preemption technology that helps emergency vehicles reach their destination safely and quickly.

Traditionally, emergency vehicles travel through traffic with their lights or siren, or a combination of both, activated when on the way to a call. When they near an intersection, drivers must navigate the traffic signals, pedestrians, vehicles, and any road hazards, often times while at speed, all while receiving evolving information about the situation they are approaching.

In 1914, American Traffic Signal Company installed the first traffic light that could be used by police and fire personnel to control the signals in the event of an emergency. Over the last century, the traffic signal preemption technology has evolved, offering acoustic, line of sight, localized radio signal, and GPS technology.

Generations of drivers grew up seeing Rad-O-Lites by the now-defunct Relco Emergency Light Company out of Erie, Pennsylvania, flashing white signals on the same line next to traffic lights alerting them to the presence of a nearby emergency vehicle that was responding to a call.

The new technology being implemented was developed and allows emergency vehicles equipped with the units to initiate traffic signal control measures. While the technology's main use case is in emergency vehicle traffic signal preemption, it can also be used by transit buses for traffic signal priority and vehicles involved in roadside work zones.

The City of Alpharetta, Georgia, was the first in the U.S. to deploy the company's technology. According to a spokesperson for the Alpharetta Department of Public Safety, the RSUs are featured on all traffic signals controlled by the city — approximately 150 units.

In Harris County, Texas, the chips are used in over 500 School Beacon Flasher Timers.

"The AI/Autotalks solution enables roadway operators to confidently deploy V2X technology today so the infrastructure is ready for the auto industry deployment, while providing 'Day One' benefits such as safer, faster emergency vehicle response times now," says Bryan Mulligan, president of Applied Information.

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This article originally ran on AutomotiveMap.

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6 Houston entrepreneurs land on coveted Inc. Female Founders 500 list

the future is female

Six Houston female entrepreneurs and innovators were named to the 2026 Female Founders 500 list.

The annual list compiled by Inc. Magazine recognizes female founders based in the U.S. who have built businesses that have moved their industries forward. The group collectively generated approximately $12.3 billion in 2025 revenue and $12.2 billion in funding to date, according to Inc. Five Houstonians were named to the list last year.

"Each year, we are increasingly amazed by the extraordinary leaders on our Inc. Female Founders 500 list," Bonny Ghosh, editorial director at Inc., said in a news release. "The honorees on this year's list include innovators in AI, beauty and wellness trendsetters winning devoted fans, and nonprofit leaders making a real impact in their communities. Together, they're showing all of us what trailblazing female leadership looks like."

The Houston founders are:

  • Sassie Duggleby, CEO and co-founder of Houston space tech and engine company Venus Aerospace. Duggleby also serves on the Texas Space Commission board of directors.
  • Stephanie Murphy, CEO and executive chairman of Aegis Aerospace, which provides space services, spaceflight product development, and engineering services. Murphy also serves as chair of the Texas Aerospace Research and Space Economy Consortium Executive Committee.
  • Laureen Meroueh, CEO and founder of Hertha Metals, which has developed a cost-effective and energy-efficient process that converts low-grade iron ore of any format directly into molten steel or high-purity iron in a single step.
  • LaToshia Norwood, managing partner of L'Renee & Associates (LRA), a full-service project management consulting firm.
  • Lauren Rottet, president and founding principal of Rottet Studio, an international architecture and design firm focused on corporate, lifestyle and hospitality projects
  • Nina Magon, founder and CEO of Nina Magon Studio / Nina Magon Consumer Products, a residential and commercial interior design company. She also co-founded KA Residences earlier this year.

"Grateful to be recognized again on the Inc. Female Founders 500," Duggleby said in a LinkedIn post. "The best part of building Venus Aerospace has been working with an incredible team pushing the boundaries of flight—and helping bring more women into aerospace along the way.

Meroueh, whose company emerged from stealth last year, voiced a similar push for bringing more women into the fold.

"We've seen a 7x jump in female-led IPOs over the last decade, from just two in 2014 (less than 1% of all IPOs) to 14 in 2024 (nearly 9% of all IPOs). Progress is happening," Meroueh shared in a LinkedIn post. "Yet, less than 1% of venture funding in hard tech goes to female-founded companies. But as my friend Ana Kraft says, the right man for the job may be a woman."

Twenty-nine Texas female founders made this list, including Amber Venz Box, founder of the Dallas-based LTK shopping platform, and Cheryl Sew Hoy, CEO and founder of Austin-based Tiny Health, a fast-growing at-home microbiome health platform. See the full list of winners here.

NASA clears Artemis moon rocket for April launch with 4 astronauts

3, 2, 1...

NASA has cleared its moon rocket on for an April launch with four astronauts after completing the latest round of repairs.

The 322-foot (98-meter) rocket will roll out of the hangar and back to the pad at Florida's Kennedy Space Center, leading to a launch attempt as early as April 1. It will mark humanity's first trip to the moon in more than 50 years.

The Artemis II crew should have blasted off on a lunar flyaround earlier this year, but fuel leaks and other problems with the Space Launch System rocket interfered.

Although NASA managed to plug the hydrogen fuel leaks at the pad in February, a helium-flow issue forced the space agency to return the rocket to the Vehicle Assembly Building for repairs, bumping the mission to April.

The space agency has only six days at the beginning of April to launch before standing down until April 30 into early May.

"It's a test flight and it is not without risk, but our team and our hardware are ready,” NASA's Lori Glaze told reporters at the end of the two-day flight readiness review.

Glaze and other NASA officials declined to provide the risk probabilities for the upcoming mission.

History has shown that a new rocket has essentially a 50% chance of success, said John Honeycutt, chair of the mission management team.

There's so much gap since the only other SLS flight — more than three years ago without anyone on board — that it's difficult to understand any risk assessment numbers, Honeycutt said.

“It's not the first flight," Glaze said. "But we're also not in a regular cadence. So we definitely have significantly more risk than a flight system that's flying all the time.”

Late last month NASA's new administrator, Jared Isaacman, announced a major overhaul of the Artemis program to speed things up and, by doing so, reduce risk.

Dissatisfied with the slow pace and lengthy gaps between lunar missions, he added an extra practice flight in orbit around Earth for next year. That is now the new Artemis III, with the moon landing by two astronauts shifted to Artemis IV. Isaacman is targeting one and maybe even two lunar landings in 2028.

NASA's Office of Inspector General warned in an audit that the space agency needs to come up with a rescue plan for its lunar crews. Landing near the moon's south pole will be riskier than it was for the Apollo astronauts closer to the equator given the rough polar terrain, according to the report.

The report cited the lunar landers as the top contributor for potential loss of crew during the first few Artemis moon landings. It listed the space agency’s loss-of-crew threshold at 1-in-40 for lunar operations and 1-in-30 for Artemis missions overall.

Contracted by NASA to provide the moon landers for astronauts, Elon Musk's SpaceX and Jeff Bezos' Blue Origin have accelerated work in order to meet the new 2028 target date. The inspector general's office said many technical challenges remain including refueling their landers in orbit around Earth before flying to the moon.

NASA sent 24 astronauts to the moon during Apollo, 12 of whom landed on it. All but one of the moonshots — Apollo 13 — achieved their prime objectives. The program ended with Apollo 17 in 1972.

Kinder leads 19 Houstonians on Forbes' World's Billionaires List 2026

World's Richest 2026

According to Forbes, there has “never been a better time to be a billionaire” than in 2026, and the publication's newest World’s Billionaires List has revealed the 19 Houston billionaires that have risen among the wealthiest worldwide.

Kinder Morgan chairman Richard Kinder surpassed hospitality honcho Tilman Fertitta as the richest billionaire in Houston, ranking No. 232 on the global list with an estimated net worth of $13 billion. His net worth has grown by $2.4 billion since last year.

Fertitta, 68, may not be the richest Houstonian anymore, but his wealth is still on the rise. He ranked 268th on the list with an estimated net worth of $11.7 billion, up from $11.3 billion last year.

Out of the 390 billionaire newbies that made their debut onto the list this year, one of them calls Houston home: restaurateur and commodities trader Ignacio Torras. Torras, 61, is the founder and CEO of global commodities trading company Tricon Energy, and he owns Michelin-starred local restaurant BCN Taste & Tradition and its sister eatery MAD. But that's not all he spends his time doing, according to Forbes.

"In 2024 Torras launched a soccer tournament for neurodivergent players called the Genuine Cup," his profile said. "Last year 800 players and 30 teams from around the world played at Rice University stadium."

Torras debuted as No. 2600 on the list with an estimated net worth of $1.5 billion.

Houston-born multi-hyphenate superstar Beyoncé Knowles-Carter also staked a claim among the world's richest people in 2026. She ranked No. 3332 on the list with a net worth of $1 billion, thanks to her "years of music sales, touring and collecting art with her already-billionaire husband Jay-Z (estimated net worth: $2.8 billion)," Forbes said.

"The majority of pop star Beyonce’s net worth comes from her roughly three decades as a solo performer and a member of the girl-group Destiny's Child," her profile said. "She holds the record for the most Grammy wins ever, with 35, and won her first Album of the Year trophy in 2025. She and her billionaire husband Jay-Z purchased a $200 million Malibu mansion in 2023, in what was the most expensive home sale in California history."

Beyoncé also ranks No. 21 in the publication's separate list of The World's Celebrity Billionaires.

Here's how the rest of Houston's billionaires fared on this year's list:

  • Toyota mega-dealer Dan Friedkin: No. 279; $11.4 billion, up from $7.7 billion
  • Pipeline heir Randa Duncan Williams: tied for No. 323 with an estimated net worth of $10.2 billion, up from $9.3 billion in 2025. Fellow pipeline heirs Dannine Avara and Milane Frantz tied for No. 332 globally. Each has an estimated net worth of $10.1 billion, up from $9.2 billion. Scott Duncan ranks No. 353 with a $9.8 billion estimated net worth, up from $9 billion in 2025.
  • Oil tycoon Jeffery Hildebrand: No. 341; $10 billion, up from $7.7 billion
  • Houston Texans owner Janice McNair and family: No. 528; $7.3 billion, up from $6.2 billion
  • Energy exploration chief exec George Bishop of The Woodlands: No. 908; $4.7 billion, down from $5 billion
  • Westlake Corporation co-owners Albert Chao, James Chao and their families: tied for No. 1074; $4 billion, flat from 2025
  • Hedge fund honcho John Arnold: No. 1504; $2.8 billion, down from $2.9 billion
  • Perry Homes executive chair Kathy Britton: No. 1611; $2.6 billion, flat from 2025
  • Houston Astros owner Jim Crane: No. 1676; $2.5 billion, up from $2.4 billion
  • Former Houston Rockets owner Leslie Alexander: No. 1834; $2.3 billion, up from $1.9 billion
  • Mercedes-Benz mega-dealer Joe Agresti: No. 3185; $1.1 billion, flat from 2025
  • Frontier Airlines chairman William Franke: No. 3332; $1 billion, down from $1.2 billion

Elsewhere in Texas

Austin billionaire Elon Musk was declared the world's richest person for the second consecutive year, and Forbes said his “grip on the top spot is as strong as it’s ever been.”

“Musk became the first person to hit $500 billion in wealth, in October,” Forbes said. “Then $600 billion and $700 billion, within four days in December. Then $800 billion, in February.”

The Tesla, SpaceX, and xAI founder’s current net worth has skyrocketed to $839 billion — a shocking $497 billion more than his 2025 net worth.

In Dallas-Fort Worth, Walmart heiress Alice Walton has maintained her elite status as the world’s richest woman for the third year in a row. Walton is the 14th richest person on the planet with a current net worth of $134 billion, an eye-catching $33 billion higher than her 2025 net worth. She is the first American woman worth $100 billion, and one of only 20 “centi-billionaires” worldwide claiming 12-figure fortunes, also known as the "$100 Billion Club."

Koch Inc. stakeholder Elaine Marshall and her family are the richest Dallas residents, ranking No. 71 globally with an estimated net worth of $30.9 billion. Her net worth has grown by $2.6 billion since last year.

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This article originally appeared on CultureMap.com.

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