I went to university in Austin and I visit every chance I get when I'm back.

Austin is - sadly - almost just another big Texas city now. A bit of its old flair has remained, but not much.

The traffic down 35 through town had a few bad times back in the day. Austin traffic nowadays is a nightmare, which is not surprising. The population has grown 5X since I was there at university, and the city did NOT expand public transportation in response to the growth - just like Houston.