Traffic Congestion?: Good news for McAllen

For Hidalgo County, and perhaps McAllen in particular, traffic congestion is getting better, not worse.

According to one recent traffic study released by navigation and GPS company TomTom, McAllen is the only major city in the entire U.S. to show a decrease in roadway congestion, 2024 vs. 2023.

This is one bit of news that’s worth celebrating. Better commute times, what’s not to love?

On the other hand, getting out this bit of info may draw more people to this area, so it’s a double-edged sword, even though the RGV needs a continued influx of people to keep the economic engine running.

McAllen, and by extension, all of Hidalgo County, already has the lowest cost of living anywhere in the U.S., based on a report released late last year by Realtor.com.

Now, comes this bit of news that says we’re number one when it comes to traffic reduction, which has no doubt been facilitated by all the roadway work completed over the past two years, which includes the whopper — completion of the Pharr/Edinburg expressway interchange, save a few minor cosmetic tweaks, cleanup, still remaining.

Faster Commute Times
According to this recent traffic survey, courtesy of TomTom, McAllen was the only city in the United States to see a decrease in traffic time in 2024. McAllen saw a 0.4% decrease in traffic congestion, which was the biggest drop compared to any other city in the country.

Residents of 90 large and mid-sized cities, including five cities from Texas, were stuck in traffic more often and for longer in 2024 than they were the year prior.

While McAllen was the only city in the U.S. to show an actual decrease in time spent on the roadways, to and fro, almost every other city mentioned in the study were more congested last year than the 12 months prior.

What isn’t clear, as is the case with so many of these studies, whether it’s best place to live, or lowest-cost city, or lowest-crime city, which McAllen has also laid claim to in recent years, is if it’s actually “city specific,” or based on the Metropolitan-Statistical- Areas (MSAs), which locally, would be called the “McAllen-Edinburg- Mission” MSA, defined by all of Hidalgo County.

Cities in Texas that saw more traffic in 2024 vs. 2023 included Dallas (8.1% more time spent in traffic), Austin (9.3%), Fort Allen (7%), San Antonio (6.5%), and Houston (1.5%). (Source: KXAN.com.)

The only other cities to see traffic improvements last year, according to TomTom, included Richmond, Va; Houston; and Las Vegas (all of which reported 3 percent or less).

For the traffic nerds out there, more info can be obtained at TomTom.com.

According to the company’s boiler plate:

“The way cities move reflects our changing world. With mobility data from more than 500 cities across six continents, the TomTom Traffic Index captures how people, goods and ideas flow globally. It provides cities with insights to become more livable, sustainable and efficient, transforming them into thriving urban environments that move with purpose and accelerate.”

Once at the website, you can pull up McAllen, and what the info suggests is that all of Hidalgo County, its traffic flow, is part of the equation:

“Travel times, congestion levels and speeds are based on trip data anonymously collected from drivers within the urban area throughout the complete road network — including fast roads and highways crossing this area.”

So next time you’re stuck at a stoplight because the driver in front of you is texting and hasn’t noticed that the light has turned green, just remind yourself, compared to the rest of the country, we are Number One.

So, relax and enjoy.

It’s worse everywhere else, at least in the large-populated areas of both Texas and the U.S.