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Ranking every state’s roads and bridges on safety, pavement quality, and cost-effectiveness

fleetnewsdaily | April 20, 2023

Report finds Virginia and North Carolina have the most cost-effective systems, while Alaska, New York, Hawaii, and California have the worst

The 27th Annual Highway Report finds Virginia’s highways and bridges rank first in overall performance and cost-effectiveness thanks to good rural pavement conditions, low fatality rates, a relatively small percentage of deficient bridges, and low highway costs. North Carolina’s solid pavement quality and low costs rank its state-controlled highway system second overall. Tennessee, Georgia, and Connecticut round out the top five in the Annual Highway Report’s performance and cost-effectiveness rankings.

In contrast, the study shows that Alaska’s highways rank last in the nation due to high fatality rates and poor urban and rural pavement conditions. New York’s high spending didn’t fix its bad urban pavement conditions or percentage of structurally deficient bridges, resulting in the state ranking 49th in overall performance and cost-effectiveness. The other worst-ranked states—Hawaii (48th), California (47th), and Washington (46th) — also tend to have high costs that are not translating into good pavement quality or safe road and bridge conditions.

Reason Foundation’s 27th Annual Highway Report examines every state in 13 categories, including urban and rural pavement conditions, urban and rural highway fatality rates, traffic congestion, structurally deficient bridges, state highway spending on capital and maintenance projects, and more. You can click on any state name below for a detailed analysis of its highway system’s conditions and costs.

Nationally, the study finds that just 21 states improved the condition of their roads and bridges in 2020, the most recent year with complete data available. Highway spending was slightly lower in 2020 than in 2019 due to reduced expenditures in three categories — capital and bridge spending, highway maintenance, and administrative costs. Unfortunately, national urban and rural fatality rates rose, and pavement conditions deteriorated on the country’s rural Interstate highways and urban arterial roads. America’s local roads are in especially bad shape, the report says.

The good news is that overall urban Interstate pavement conditions improved, and a smaller percentage of the country’s bridges were graded as structurally deficient. Urban traffic congestion was also down in 2020, but significant reductions in travel due to the COVID-19 pandemic were responsible for that decrease.

Reason Foundation’s 27th Annual Highway Report Rankings

Overall performance and cost-effectiveness rankings of state highway systems

The study finds that a group of particularly poor-performing states is having a hard time fixing critical problems. For example, just four states—California, New York, Louisiana, and Hawaii—are responsible for more than 25% of the nation’s total urban Interstate pavement in poor condition. Likewise, over a quarter of the country’s urban arterial pavement in poor condition can be found in five states: California, New York, Massachusetts, Nebraska, and Rhode Island. Three states— California, Colorado, and Alaska—have more than 25% of the nation’s rural Interstate pavement in poor condition. And nine states reported more than 10% of their bridges as structurally deficient: Iowa, Louisiana, Maine, Michigan, North Dakota, Pennsylvania, Rhode Island, South Dakota, and West Virginia.

Full Report

The full 27th Annual Highway Report is available here:
https://reason.org/policy-study/27th-annual-highway-report/

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