Houston puts it in park at No. 8 on new list of U.S. cities with worst traffic

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Shocker: Houston made another list of cities with the worst traffic. Courtesy photo

Few things are more frustrating for Houston drivers than sitting in bumper-to-bumper traffic. You're late, you're stuck, and you're wasting time and gas — every single day. It's no surprise that the Bayou City has ranked inside the top 10 in a new list of cities with the worst traffic.

The average Houston driver lost 62 hours to traffic delays in 2023, according to Inrix's latest Global Traffic Scorecard. That's 16 hours more than the time tallied in 2022, and 20 hours more than the national average of 42 hours lost. Ouch!

Trends across the country after the pandemic continue to contribute to congestion. Remote work has led to a longer stretch of high-traffic hours instead of the usual pre-9 am and post-5 pm rush hour surges — and less predictable peaks at that.

"On any given day, everybody might be going into the office and no one is expecting it," David Schrank, a senior research scientist at Texas A&M Transportation Institute, told The Hill in June 2024. "What if next Monday everybody gets called in? Then boom — it's gridlock."

On top of that, truck-related congestion (as anyone driving across Texas knows) has increased with the continued rise of e-commerce and home delivery, with one truck equaling two to three cars on the road.

To see where congestion is the biggest problem nationwide, Stacker ranked the 25 cities in the U.S. with the most time lost per driver due to congestion, according to data from Inrix. Houston lands at No. 8, the worst in Texas. Of course, Houstonians don't need a new survey to tell them just how miserable our traffic is - as our late, beloved columnist Ken Hoffman expressed earlier this year.

Three other cities in Texas have made the top 25-worst list: Dallas is No. 17, Austin is No. 21, and San Antonio rounds out the whole list at No. 25.

Stacker's analysis includes how much delays cost drivers based on median hourly wages in each metro area, per the Bureau of Labor Statistics, and comparisons to pre-COVID-19 pandemic hours lost, measured in 2019. Inrix calculated commute times by looking exclusively at the time it takes to get to and from major employment centers based on anonymized GPS data.

Downtown speed is the speed at which a commuter should expect to travel 1 mile into the city's downtown or central business area during peak morning hours, and the first quarter of 2024 versus the first quarter of 2023 metric is the change in travel times during those two periods.

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This article originally ran on CultureMap.

Houston drivers — here's your validation for your road rage. Photo by Manuel Velasquez on Unsplash

Houston drivers have the 4th worst commute in America, study finds

on the road again?

For better or for worse, it's finally been confirmed – Houston traffic is among the worst in the nation, according to a new study by Forbes Home.

Houston ranked No. 4 in the Forbes study, which analyzed 25 of the largest U.S. cities to discover the average commute times for workers. Using 2021 U.S. Census data, the report determined the average time spent traveling to work in Houston is 30 minutes, which is only the ninth worst commute time out of all cities on the list.

"No amount of personal playlist songs, audiobooks, podcasts, commuter coffee, or glove compartment snacks can make a tough commute more pleasant," the report said.

While the COVID-19 pandemic brought commuting to a halt for most workers, about 74 percent of Americans are back to making those early morning and afternoon drives to-and-from their employers. Work-from-home rates have continuously dropped since 2020, which isn't helping the rise in commute times.

Houston has nearly 1.75 million workers over the age of 16 living within the area, and only 4.6 percent of households don't have access to a car. Unless workers live very close to their jobs, it's otherwise pretty difficult to walk or bike to work in such a gridlock-stricken city.

It surely doesn't help that the study cites Houston's (unfortunate) fame for being the No. 1 most stressful U.S. city for workers as having a hand in its overall ranking. Add commuting to that list of stressors, and it all equals an unhealthy effect on the working population.

"Research by the National Library of Medicine has found that the longer the commute time, the less satisfaction with work and life as hours spent commuting daily can contribute to a decline in mental and physical health," the report said.

Elsewhere in Texas, Dallas (No. 9) and Fort Worth (No. 10) both made it into the top 10 with their respective commute times of 29.70 and 26.80 minutes. San Antonio ranked No. 16 with an average commute time of 25.40 minutes. Austin, surprisingly, ranked No. 18 overall with an average of 27.90 minutes.

The top 10 U.S. cities with the hardest commutes are:

No. 1 – Nashville, Tennessee
No. 2 – Charlotte, North Carolina
No. 3 – Jacksonville, Florida
No. 4 – Houston, Texas
No. 5 – Washington, D.C.
No. 6 – New York City, New York
No. 7 – Boston, Massachusetts
No. 8 – Los Angeles, California
No. 9 – Dallas, Texas
No. 10 – Fort Worth, Texas

The full report can be found on forbes.com.

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This article originally ran on CultureMap.

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Reliant partners to expand Texas virtual power plant and home battery use

energy incentives

Houston’s Reliant and San Francisco tech company GoodLeap are teaming up to bolster residential battery participation and accelerate the growth of NRG’s virtual power plant (VPP) network in Texas.

Through the new partnership, eligible Reliant customers can either lease a battery or enter into a power purchase agreement with GoodLeap through its GoodGrid program, which incentivises users by offering monthly performance-based rewards for contributing stored power to the grid. Through the Reliant GoodLeap VPP Battery Program, customers will start earning $40 per month in rewards from GoodLeap.

“These incentives highlight our commitment to making homeowner battery adoption more accessible, effectively offsetting the cost of the battery and making the upgrade a no-cost addition to their homes,” Dan Lotano, COO at GoodLeap, said in a news release.“We’re proud to work with NRG to unlock the next frontier in distributed energy in Texas. This marks an important step in GoodLeap reaching our nationwide goal of 1.5 GW of managed distributed energy over the next five years.”

Other features of the program include power outage plans, with battery reserves set aside for outage events. The plan also intelligently manages the battery without homeowner interaction.

The partnership comes as Reliant’s parent company, NRG, continues to scale its VPP program. Last year, NRG partnered with California-based Renew Home to distribute hundreds of thousands of VPP-enabled smart thermostats by 2035 in an effort to help households manage and lower their energy costs.

“We started building our VPP with smart thermostats across Texas, and now this partnership with GoodLeap brings home battery storage into our platform,” Mark Parsons, senior vice president and head of Texas energy at NRG, said in a the release. “Each time we add new devices, we’re enabling Texans to unlock new value from their homes, earn rewards and help build a more resilient grid for everyone. This is about giving customers the opportunity to actively participate in the energy transition and receive tangible benefits for themselves and their communities.

How Corrolytics is tackling industrial corrosion and cutting emissions

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Corrosion is not something most people think about, but for Houston's industrial backbone pipelines, refineries, chemical plants, and water infrastructure, it is a silent and costly threat. Replacing damaged steel and overusing chemicals adds hundreds of millions of tons of carbon emissions every year. Despite the scale of the problem, corrosion detection has barely changed in decades.

In a recent episode of the Energy Tech Startups Podcast, Anwar Sadek, founder and CEO of Corrolytics, explained why the traditional approach is not working and how his team is delivering real-time visibility into one of the most overlooked challenges in the energy transition.

From Lab Insight to Industrial Breakthrough

Anwar began as a researcher studying how metals degrade and how microbes accelerate corrosion. He quickly noticed a major gap. Companies could detect the presence of microorganisms, but they could not tell whether those microbes were actually causing corrosion or how quickly the damage was happening. Most tests required shipping samples to a lab and waiting months for results, long after conditions inside the asset had changed.

That gap inspired Corrolytics' breakthrough. The company developed a portable, real-time electrochemical test that measures microbial corrosion activity directly from fluid samples. No invasive probes. No complex lab work. Just the immediate data operators can act on.

“It is like switching from film to digital photography,” Anwar says. “What used to take months now takes a couple of hours.”

Why Corrosion Matters in Houston's Energy Transition

Houston's energy transition is a blend of innovation and practicality. While the world builds new low-carbon systems, the region still depends on existing industrial infrastructure. Keeping those assets safe, efficient, and emission-conscious is essential.

This is where Corrolytics fits in. Every leak prevented, every pipeline protected, and every unnecessary gallon of biocide avoided reduces emissions and improves operational safety. The company is already seeing interest across oil and gas, petrochemicals, water and wastewater treatment, HVAC, industrial cooling, and biofuels. If fluids move through metal, microbial corrosion can occur, and Corrolytics can detect it.

Because microbes evolve quickly, slow testing methods simply cannot keep up. “By the time a company gets lab results, the environment has changed completely,” Anwar explains. “You cannot manage what you cannot measure.”

A Scientist Steps Into the CEO Role

Anwar did not plan to become a CEO. But through the National Science Foundation's ICorps program, he interviewed more than 300 industry stakeholders. Over 95 percent cited microbial corrosion as a major issue with no effective tool to address it. That validation pushed him to transform his research into a product.

Since then, Corrolytics has moved from prototype to real-world pilots in Brazil and Houston, with early partners already using the technology and some preparing to invest. Along the way, Anwar learned to lead teams, speak the language of industry, and guide the company through challenges. “When things go wrong, and they do, it is the CEO's job to steady the team,” he says.

Why Houston

Relocating to Houston accelerated everything. Customers, partners, advisors, and manufacturing talent are all here. For industrial and energy tech startups, Houston offers an ecosystem built for scale.

What's Next

Corrolytics is preparing for broader pilots, commercial partnerships, and team growth as it continues its fundraising efforts. For anyone focused on asset integrity, emissions reduction, or industrial innovation, this is a company to watch.

Listen to the full conversation with Anwar Sadek on the Energy Tech Startups Podcast to learn more:

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Energy Tech Startups Podcast is hosted by Jason Ethier and Nada Ahmed. It delves into Houston's pivotal role in the energy transition, spotlighting entrepreneurs and industry leaders shaping a low-carbon future.

Investors close partial acquisition of Phillips 66 subsidiary with growing EV network

M&A activity

Energy Equation Partners, a London-based investment firm focused on clean energy companies, and New York-based Stonepeak have completed the acquisition of a 65 percent interest in JET Tankstellen Deutschland GmbH, a subsidiary of Houston oil and gas giant Phillips 66.

JET is one of the largest and most popular fuel retailers in Germany and Austria with a rapidly growing EV charging network, according to a news release. It also operates approximately 970 service stations, convenience stores and car washes.

“We are delighted to complete this acquisition and to partner with Stonepeak and Phillips 66 to take JET to the next level,” Javed Ahmed, managing partner of Energy Equation Partners, said in a news release. “This investment reflects EEP’s commitment to investing in established players in the energy sector who have the potential to make a meaningful impact on the energy transition, and we are excited to work alongside the entire JET team, including its dedicated service station operators, to realize this vision.”

The deal values JET at approximately $2.8 billion. Phillips 66 will retain a 35 percent non-operated interest in JET and received about $1.6 billion in pre-tax proceeds.

“Under Phillips 66’s ownership, JET has grown into one of the largest fuel retailers in Germany and Austria," Anthony Borreca, senior managing director and co-head of energy at Stonepeak, added in a news release. "We are excited to join forces with them, as well as Javed and the EEP team, who have long-standing experience investing in and operating retail fuel distribution and logistics globally, to support the next phase of JET’s growth.”

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