Trash-talking Houston – Professional Division

Houston got a shout out yesterday on Forbes.com, in an article titled "World's 10 Best Commutes." Go on, take a guess. Hey, you got it in one! Houston was the counterexample. The only counterexample. Out of all the cities in the world. How does that line go? There's no such thing as bad publicity?

Writer Matt Woolsey, Forbes' go-to guy for transportation and real estate analysis, first explained how high density and comprehensive public transit make for ideal commuting conditions, and then took the following cheap shot:

And in Houston, jobs and population are so spread out that a relatively complex train system is needed. The city government has proposed between $3 billion and $7.5 billion of light rail improvements since 2003, though little has been done to successfully alleviate mounting traffic, which consistently ranks the city towards the bottom of our U.S. commute lists.

Is that the best you can do, Woolsey? Houstonist wonders if it is mere coincidence that this article came out the same day that the Katy Freeway reopened. That's right, eighteen lanes of glorious concrete. How you like us now?

While Houstonist remains deeply skeptical about TXDOT's default traffic solution of widening existing freeways—most urban planners agree that adding lanes is a short-term fix with significant externalized costs and unintended consequences—it is certain that the Katy Freeway expansion will alleviate traffic. In that respect at least, Forbes got it wrong. Besides, trash-talking Houston traffic is child's play. What's next, a victory lap after knocking out Glass Joe?

But perhaps Woolsey and his editors simply love creating rankings. In the past four months alone, he has also included Houston on the lists of "America's Most Expensive Natural Disasters", "Best U.S. Cities To Earn A Living", "Best Cities For Young Professionals", and "Best Cities for Unemployment Pay".

Photo credits: Erik Slotboom, flickr user j-e-m-s (dos chicas)