AUSTIN, Texas — As the Austin area continues to boom with more people, so does the traffic issue.
If you live in or around Austin you likely have encountered heavy traffic on your daily commute, but there are a few ways you can beat the Austin traffic, or at least make it not feel so awful.
So, how do you beat this heavy traffic?
Well, the first way is pretty straight forward. Just leave at a different time each day, when traffic won't be as bad.
If you are worried about getting to work to early or getting home to late because of this, find a way to fill time in your day.
If you start getting to work to early, you could find a gym nearby your workplace that you can work out at, or find a nice coffee shop to spend your mornings before getting to work.
There are also plenty of greenbelts around the city. You could find one to hike, using it as a way to clear your head before arriving to work for the day.
These are all options you can chose to do after work as well. There are also more groups that get together in the evening. You can find one of these groups and it will give you something to do until traffic starts to calm down on the roads.
Not everyone has the luxury of being able to do some of the things listed above due to pets, kids or other responsibilities, so what other options are there?
You could find different routes, using apps that track your daily commute, linking to new ways that help you manage traffic. The Waze app is just one app that can do this for you. The app tracks where the traffic is flowing more freely, so you can get to work and home on time.
You can also keep an eye on traffic around you. Sometimes staying on the frontage roads, rather than merging on to roads like I-35 or MoPac, is quicker.
There are also the toll roads, if you don't mind spending a little more money, but these roads don't always get you to your destination faster. Sometimes they are just as backed up as the major non-tolled thoroughfares.
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While taking alternate routes may not help you miss traffic all together, there are some things you can do to make the drive more bearable.
While sitting in your vehicle you can listen to music or whatever is on the local radio stations, but you can also find ways to be productive by listening to National Public Radio or Podcasts. You can also download eBooks to make the drive a little more entertaining. By the time you get to your destination, you may be so deep into a book that you don't even want to get out of the car.
Finally, before you head out of the door in the morning, check the traffic report on KVUE ABC or on KVUE.com. This will help to let you know whether there are bad accidents on your typical route, giving you a heads up if you need to take a different route.