Researchers want your help fixing traffic nightmares

HOUSTON (KTRK) -- Three hundred thousand cars drive it every day.

It's a 14 mile stretch of the Southwest Freeway, from the south beltway to I-45 is the culprit for backups and slow downs researchers suggest costs us $180 million and close to 2 million hours every year.

And as and more and more people travel the interstate to and from work and home, the issue is only getting worse.

Raquelle Lewis, a spokesperson for the Texas Department of Transportation, says it is a multi-agency effort to tackle the congestion. "We are constantly working at how we fix it," she says.

So a group of researchers, led by the Houston Galveston Area Council, are looking at the specific causes of backups along every section of the stretch. And they want your help.

On Wednesday, they hosted an open house to talk traffic and potential solutions to it.

"I think one of the biggest challenges is just to get everybody walking in the right direction," says HGAC's Bill Tobin. "Hopefully some of the strategies that we do identify, we could implement soon. That's the key word: soon."

Among the residents at the lunch time open house at 3555 Timmons in southwest Houston, was Abram Vanelswyk. He drives the stretch as a reverse commuter every afternoon.

"The PM inbound is just reliably slow all the time," he explains. He's not sure how to fix it, but likes the idea of being able to give his input. "I think it's a tricky situation because you have a lot of merging traffic down at (Highway) 288 and the spur."

Variable speed limits are on suggestion being considered to reduce congestion.

Also attending the open house was Rosalind Pipes. She lives in the Afton Oaks neighborhood adjacent to the freeway and says the spillover from 59 into her neighborhood has her looking for solutions. "People walk. We have children. We have no sidewalks. It's just getting to be a problem."

If you're interested in contributing your suggestions, there is another open house at 3555 Timmons, tonight from 6 to 8PM.

Or, you can go to mysouthwestfreeway.com for an interactive, virtual open house and leave your comments there. The site will be accepting comments for the next month.

Results of the study and suggested solutions will be ready in the spring of 2015.