Houston only has three loops: I-610 and Beltway 8, with State Highway 99 under construction. The latter 2 are both toll roads. (I guess the highways around down

Houston only has three loops: I-610 and Beltway 8, with State Highway 99 under construction. The latter 2 are both toll roads. (I guess the highways around downtown form a loop, but as a former resident of the city, I never heard anyone call that a loop - I-610 was always the inner loop.) If you’re going to shit on Houston, at least get the facts right. Also, what’s wrong with beltways? The main flaw in the interstate highway system, from an urbanist perspective, has always been the highways cutting through the historic urban core, which tend to attract traffic just passing through. Houston has those too, but not really any worse than most American cities. Beltways are really great at diverting such traffic away from the urban core. Unfortunately, as cities expand, beltways tend to become part of the urban core, so farther out beltways need to be built to retain their advantages.