The nation’s infrastructure is frequently talked about at political campaign rallies. The promise of better roads, funding and jobs created from infrastructure projects are key ticket items. They’re right about the nation needing infrastructure improvements: a Federal Highway Administration reports show 61% of the country’s highways are in fair to poor condition. Transportation for America estimates a cost of $231 billion a year to keep our existing road network in acceptable repair.
Taxpayer funded highway capital delegated for states to maintain roads isn’t enough to cover necessary repairs. Many states are spending the majority of their highway capital on expansion instead of maintenance of roads. At this rate, it becomes a never ending game of maintenance catch up. On top of taxpayer dollars, it’s estimated that driving on roads in poor condition costs motorists $120 billion in vehicle repairs and operating costs. That’s $533 per driver.
Maintaining quality roads in a given state is a matter of priority and delegation of funds. While analyzing FHA data, we found a correlation between states that use funds to maintain roads and states that rank well overall for road infrastructure. States with poor road infrastructure had higher costs per driver and typically poor road conditions across the board.
We here at QuoteWizard analyzed Federal Highway Administration data to rank states on overall quality of road infrastructure. Rankings are a composite score based on a state’s rating in:
- Percentage of poor condition roads
- Annual cost per motorist due to roads in need of repair
- Percentage of structurally deficient bridges
Rankings 1 to 50 with first being worst overall road infrastructure and 50th being best overall road infrastructure. Also included, but not part of the ranking factors, is the percentage of state highway spending on road repairs to show which states are addressing the problem.
Rank (worst) | State | % roads in poor condition | Cost per motorist | % bridges structurally deficient | % of spending on road repairs |
---|---|---|---|---|---|
1 | Rhode Island | 53 | $823 | 23 | 2 |
2 | Oklahoma | 33 | $900 | 14 | 27 |
3 | West Virginia | 31 | $723 | 18 | 19 |
4 | Mississippi | 30 | $820 | 11 | 4 |
5 | Pennsylvania | 30 | $610 | 18 | 22 |
6 | New Jersey | 34 | $703 | 8 | 57 |
7 | California | 45 | $862 | 6 | 35 |
8 | Missouri | 23 | $699 | 12 | 20 |
9 | Louisiana | 25 | $624 | 14 | 22 |
10 | New Mexico | 31 | $768 | 6 | 39 |
11 | Wisconsin | 29 | $736 | 8 | 33 |
12 | Connecticut | 34 | $676 | 7 | 21 |
13 | Hawaii | 42 | $764 | 5 | 31 |
14 | Michigan | 24 | $645 | 10 | 54 |
15 | Massachusetts | 3 | $627 | 9 | 23 |
16 | Maine | 22 | $529 | 13 | 65 |
17 | New Hampshire | 25 | $525 | 10 | 45 |
18 | South Dakota | 14 | $563 | 18 | 69 |
19 | South Carolina | 18 | $557 | 9 | 32 |
20 | Washington | 29 | $643 | 4 | 21 |
21 | New York | 19 | 509 | 10 | 43 |
22 | Illinois | 19 | $586 | 8 | 4 |
23 | Colorado | 22 | $637 | 5 | 30 |
24 | Alaska | 20 | $450 | 10 | 39 |
25 | Utah | 22 | $694 | 2 | 26 |
26 | North Dakota | 10 | $479 | 14 | 68 |
27 | Kansas | 10 | $591 | 8 | 33 |
28 | Ohio | 18 | $544 | 6 | 4 |
29 | Iowa | 9 | $362 | 20 | 40 |
30 | Nebraska | 7 | $466 | 14 | 53 |
31 | Alabama | 14 | $506 | 7 | 41 |
32 | Arizona | 19 | $576 | 2 | 15 |
33 | Montana | 11 | $472 | 9 | 45 |
34 | Minnesota | 15 | $542 | 5 | 31 |
35 | Indiana | 13 | $480 | 7 | 20 |
36 | North Carolina | 13 | $336 | 10 | 11 |
37 | Texas | 11 | $682 | 1 | 15 |
38 | Delaware | 19 | $486 | 4 | 19 |
39 | Arkansas | 9 | $543 | 5 | 19 |
40 | Kentucky | 10 | $434 | 7 | 30 |
41 | Nevada | 14 | $536 | 1 | 21 |
42 | Wyoming | 8 | $356 | 9 | 54 |
43 | Vermont | 17 | $418 | 5 | 46 |
44 | Idaho | 5 | $427 | 8 | 36 |
45 | Virginia | 10 | $430 | 5 | 19 |
46 | Maryland | 11 | $356 | 5 | 20 |
47 | Oregon | 7 | $268 | 5 | 25 |
48 | Florida | 8 | $351 | 2 | 37 |
49 | Georgia | 5 | $275 | 4 | 34 |
50 | Tennessee | 5 | $194 | 4 | 16 |
Data courtesy of quotewizard.com.