A significant vehicle crash brought traffic to a crawl on the North Freeway at 13705 North Fwy in Houston Sunday morning at 11:36 AM. The collision, reported via the Citizen App, has created major delays across the northbound and southbound lanes during what should have been a lighter weekend traffic period.
The North Freeway corridor between Downtown and the Greens area is now heavily congested as emergency crews work the scene. Drivers heading northbound toward The Woodlands or southbound toward downtown should consider US-290 as an alternate route, though traffic there is beginning to back up as well. Those willing to take surface streets can use Spring Branch Drive or T.C. Jester Boulevard to bypass the freeway bottleneck entirely. The timing couldn't be worse for Sunday commuters—even weekend traffic can gridlock this stretch when major incidents occur.
This section of North Fwy has long been a trouble spot during peak and near-peak periods. The area near the North Fwy and Spring Branch Drive intersection sees consistent volume from drivers heading to and from the Uptown area, The Woodlands, and northern Harris County. The freeway's narrower configuration through this section leaves little buffer when crashes occur, turning what might be a quick clearance into extended delays.
As of late morning, the incident remained active with crews still managing the scene. Both directions are experiencing significant slowdowns, though one direction may be more heavily impacted than the other depending on where the vehicles came to rest. Drivers should expect backup extending several miles in both directions and plan for significantly longer commute times if they must use North Fwy. Surface street alternatives are recommended for anyone not immediately reliant on the freeway.
Sources: TxDOT Crash Records Information System and Local Traffic Accidents database. Counts through October 1, 2026.
In the four weeks before this crash, 55 incidents had piled up at this location.
The location continued to accumulate incidents — 398 more after this crash. 255 of those incidents were major. 2 of the more recent crashes ended in a fatality.
The location's crash rate has eased in the months since.
Multiple crashes piled up over consecutive days.
The combined before-and-after total places this location in the upper tier of county incident counts.
Data updated as of October 06, 2026.
This report was produced by LTA's editor-designed production system under the executive editorial direction of Dennis R. Mundy, Executive Editor. The system combines our proprietary data pipeline with AI-assisted drafting to deliver verified incident coverage to LTA's editorial standards.