Houston roads saw half of the average drivers in April

Courtney Fischer Image
Wednesday, May 13, 2020
Houston roads saw half of the average drivers in April
New statistics from TxDOT show a massive decrease in cars on the road, with some weekends in April seeing only 500,000 drivers.

HOUSTON, Texas (KTRK) -- If you're returning to the office this week, you'll likely see more cars on the road than you did one month ago.

New TxDOT numbers show travel into Houston on the Gulf Freeway is 16 minutes faster compared to before the coronavirus pandemic.

On average, it usually takes about 37 minutes to drive 24 miles.

Since COVID-19 hit, it only takes about 20 minutes.

New graphs from TxDOT compare traffic patterns before and during the pandemic.

Pre-coronavirus peaks show about 2 million cars on the road per day.

Coronavirus pandemic numbers show an average of 1 to 1.25 million cars on the road.

However, the last two weekends in April saw closer to 500,000 cars on the road.

For a city of close to 7 million people, those numbers are incredibly low.

Traffic is starting to pick back up with businesses reopening, so it will be interesting to see how the numbers start in increase again.

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