CONTACTTRAFFICABOUT TOM VANDERBILTOTHER WRITING CONTACT ABOUT THE BOOK
« One Reason You Should Finance a Car
The Latest Slate Column… »

Suburban Mom Braves Downtown Houston Traffic in SUV, Lives to Tell About It

Driving to Downtown Houston - Stephanie Click - MommyMadnessHouston.com from Stephanie Click on Vimeo.

Can the Jon Krakauer ghost-written tale of survival be far behind?

OK, this poor woman has been mocked enough over at Swamplot.com, but my first thought, reading that site’s account, was: Wait, GM is now giving out cars to bloggers to test drive and oh-so-non-critically review its fleet? No wonder they’re in the tank!

Driving alone in heavy traffic (to paraphrase the Gang of Four, “we live as we drive, alone”), she then notes that this congestion is why she’s glad she doesn’t live downtown. A bit ironic, given that it’s suburbanites causing the traffic, and that if one lived in central Houston it might actually be possible to do a thing or two without a car. Or, if you lived downtown and worked in the suburbs, you could reverse commute. But c’mon, you’ve never changed lanes? Madness indeed.

(Horn honk to Dan)

[del.icio.us] [Digg] [Facebook] [Google] [MySpace] [Slashdot] [StumbleUpon] [Yahoo!]

This entry was posted on Friday, May 15th, 2009 at 3:09 pm and is filed under Cars, Cities, Commuting, Traffic Culture. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.

7 Responses to “Suburban Mom Braves Downtown Houston Traffic in SUV, Lives to Tell About It”

  1. Carice Says:
    May 15th, 2009 at 3:41 pm

    As a former Houstonian, I can say that the Carrabba’s on Kirby is hardly “downtown”
    Not only is it not located in actual downtown, it’s part of a suburban arterial strip, only a few blocks from a 6 or 8 lane controlled access highway. That neighborhood is relatively dense for Houston, but compared to neighborhoods in Boston, it’s really suburban.
    I will say that Houston highway driving can be really terrifying-it’s like being on the autobahn or a parking lot, without much in between.

  2. Amy Says:
    May 17th, 2009 at 12:54 pm

    The first commenter beat me to it - Kirby is hardly “downtown”.

    But here’s a concept folks - there are more roads in Houston than the freeways. I lived there six years and was proud of the fact that I could get around any traffic snarl just by getting off of the freeway system. Houston is fortunate; unlike cities like Boston (and I’ve driven there, too,) many of Houston’s streets are on a fairly grid-like pattern. Turn off the GPS, learn to orient yourselves, and get off of the freeway!

  3. Jack Says:
    May 18th, 2009 at 8:05 am

    I too lived in Houston but it was over 30 years ago and traffic was a problem then too. I use to walk to many places but sidewalks abruptly end and drivers would yell out the window “Hey Loser!” (even though I was always wearing a suit). The one and only time I got rear-ended was there. Yes there are alternative roads I used for cycling, but the majority don’t live in River Oaks.

  4. Amy Says:
    May 18th, 2009 at 9:08 am

    Just to be clear (in case you were referring to me), I did not live in River Oaks. I lived three neighborhoods over the course of six years - Montrose (when I used Houston’s lovely public transportation system), Fountainview/Westheimer, and the Hollister/290 area.

    If you weren’t referring to me, then please disregard.

  5. Lee Watkins Says:
    May 21st, 2009 at 8:49 am

    That’s exactly why I do continue to live downtown despite my job moving out to the suburbs - reverse commute! Plus I only need the car for getting to work - anything else is the bicycle.

  6. Peter Says:
    May 25th, 2009 at 2:56 pm

    Wow, it comes with mirrors! What a great feature.

  7. houston condos Says:
    November 19th, 2009 at 2:24 pm

    heh peter, exactly what i was thinking.

Leave a Reply

Traffic Tom Vanderbilt

How We Drive is the companion blog to Tom Vanderbilt’s New York Times bestselling book, Traffic: Why We Drive the Way We Do (and What It Says About Us), published by Alfred A. Knopf in the U.S. and Canada, Penguin in the U.K, and in languages other than English by a number of other fine publishers worldwide.

Please send tips, news, research papers, links, photos (bad road signs, outrageous bumper stickers, spectacularly awful acts of driving or parking or anything traffic-related), or ideas for my Slate.com Transport column to me at: info@howwedrive.com.

For publicity inquiries, please contact Kate Runde at Vintage: krunde@randomhouse.com.

For editorial inquiries, please contact Zoe Pagnamenta at The Zoe Pagnamenta Agency: zoe@zpagency.com.

For speaking engagement inquiries, please contact
Jenna Meulemans at the Knopf Speaker Bureau.

Order Traffic from:

Amazon | B&N | Borders
Random House | Powell’s

[del.icio.us] [Digg] [Facebook] [Google] [MySpace] [Slashdot] [StumbleUpon] [Yahoo!]
U.S. Paperback UK Paperback
Traffic UK
Drive-on-the-left types can order the book from Amazon.co.uk.

For UK publicity enquiries please contact Rosie Glaisher at Penguin.

Upcoming Talks

[del.icio.us] [Digg] [Facebook] [Google] [MySpace] [Slashdot] [StumbleUpon] [Yahoo!]
Twitter
May 2009
M T W T F S S
« Apr   Jun »
 123
45678910
11121314151617
18192021222324
25262728293031