The Worst Roads For Traffic In North Texas Are....
DALLAS (CBS 11 NEWS) - Going nowhere. Three DFW roads are now on Texas' top 10 "transit challenges" list.
Two are on the Dallas side. One of them is I-30, from Loop 12 into downtown Dallas. The other is 75 from the Bush Turnpike down to LBJ.
The third bad backup spot is I-35 in Fort Worth from Hwy 183 to Hwy 81 in the Alliance area.
And, it could only get worse if more money isn't pumped into funding for Texas roads.
For Corey Williams, who drives on THE worst road in Texas, I-35 near downtown Dallas is a sinkhole for time wasted sitting in traffic.
"Very, very, very congested, like you can barely move," he said.
Williams and his wife, Stacia Toney, think they spend hundreds of hours stuck in traffic.
"Every year, maybe 200 hours or more," Williams said.
"Maybe 100 hours," Toney said.
According to the latest Texas transportation research, 45 hours is the average time a driver wastes in congested traffic every year.
Bad roads also cost the average Texas driver $350 in repairs every year.
"The alignment goes out. You always have to repair your alignment so. It's a lot of repairs," Toney said.
TRIP, a national transportation research group says time wasted and cost to repair are sure to go up because money for roads in Texas is going down.
Vic Suhm Executive Director of the Tarrant Regional Transportation Coalition said, "We need at least one billion dollars a year more just for maintenance, just to keep things the way they are right now."
The fuel tax is losing money fast as more electric and hybrid cars reach the roads. And that tax helps to fund roadwork. Add to that expected growth.
"We need about 3 billion dollars more a year if we're going to start dealing with the growing congestion," Suhm said.
TRIP thinks one solution would be to raise taxes and fees for every driver by $400 per year.
Corey Williams wasn't happy to hear that.
"No! The economy is bad!" he said.
His wife disagreed.
"We'll do what we have to do. If it's going to help us. If it saves more time with your family. Yeah. That's what we have to do," she said.
Money for roads could come out of an increase in the fuel tax which hasn't been raised since 1991 and vehicle registration fees which haven't been raised since 1986.
There's nothing in the works yet. For now, TRIP says it just wants to educate the public.
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