Yea, in absolute terms, Austin traffic isn't bad. I moved to Austin from Atlanta, and Atlanta has massive commutes and traffic. That said, for a while, my commute in Austin was ~3 miles. It took about 7 minutes on the weekends, and took between 30 and 45 minutes in average 8 AM morning traffic. (Loop 360, for the curious.)

Austin traffic is just amazingly severe for short periods - you'll see trips go to 2-4x the time regularly, and a trivial event in downtown is enough to cause a 2-3x increase in traffic. Even on the worst day, you're usually not looking at more than 45 mins in absolute time, but it's nearly mandatory to check Google Maps before you go anywhere, because there's a 40% chance it's going to take 45 mins to get somewhere you can usually get to in 5-10 mins.