West Loop is the most congested roadway in Texas

Click through to see stunning aerials of Houston's busiest highways. Traffic on the IH-10 Katy Freeway viewed facing west near Loop 610 on Thursday, April 11, 2013, in Houston. ( Smiley N. Pool / Houston Chronicle ) less Click through to see stunning aerials of Houston's busiest highways. Traffic on the IH-10 Katy Freeway viewed facing west near Loop 610 on Thursday, April 11, 2013, in Houston. ( Smiley N. Pool / Houston ... more Photo: Smiley N. Pool, Houston Chronicle Photo: Smiley N. Pool, Houston Chronicle Image 1 of / 20 Caption Close West Loop is the most congested roadway in Texas 1 / 20 Back to Gallery

In a contest that no one wants to win, the 610 West Loop has edged out Interstate 35 in Austin as the state's most congested roadway, according to a new report.

I-35 between US 290 and Ben White Boulevard took the top honors in the Texas A&M Traffic Institute's annual study of Most Congested Roadways in Texas.

Third, fourth and fifth places this year go to the Southwest Freeway in Houston between the West Loop and Texas 288, U.S. 75 in Dallas and Stemmons Freeway in Dallas.

Congestion is measured in hours of delay, with data collected from a variety of sources by the Texas Department of Transportation and Inrix, a private-sector source of traffic data for some navigation services, said Tim Lomax, a senior engineer at the traffic institute.

What started as a list of the state's 100 most congested roadways now includes a variety of congestion measures on nearly 1,800 roads in 25 urban regions. The traffic institute at Texas A&M University conducts the study each year for the Texas Department of Transportation.

This is the first year that it has included so many road segments, Lomax said. The segments are typically three to five miles long, he said.

The extra analysis was included because researchers realized the list of the 100 most congested roads addressed primarily large cities, leaving the needs of smaller places unaddressed, Lomax said.

"People said, 'If we're going to use this for planning, what we ought to do is look at more pieces of road and a lot more pieces in small and medium-size cities,' " he said.

This year's report also looks at freight-related congestion and ranks roads in terms of truck traffic. I-35 in Austin is the state's worst stretch for truck traffic, producing the most hours of truck delay.

Houston's West Loop between I-10 and U.S. 59 ranks No. 4 in the state for truck congestion.

In the Houston region, these are the 10 most congested stretches of road: