Report Ranks Best, Worst, Safest, and Most Expensive State Highway Systems
The Reason Foundation’s Annual Highway Report finds that North Dakota and Kansas have the nation’s most cost-effective highway systems, while New Jersey and Rhode Island have the worst.
The Reason Foundation’s Annual Highway Report ranks the performance of state highway systems in 11 categories, including spending per mile and traffic congestion. Photo by Barry Johnson
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The Reason Foundation’s Annual Highway Report ranks the performance of state highway systems in 11 categories, including spending per mile and traffic congestion. Photo by Barry Johnson
The nation’s top-performing, most cost-effective highways can be found in North Dakota, Kansas, South Dakota, Nebraska, and South Carolina, according to a new study.
The 23rd edition of the Reason Foundation’s Annual Highway Report, released on Thursday, ranks the performance of state highway systems in 11 categories, including pavement condition, deficient bridges, traffic congestion, fatality rates, spending per mile of state-controlled highway, and system administrative costs.
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According to the Reason Foundation, the significant differences between state highway systems were illustrated by the huge disparity in spending per mile. West Virginia spent the least — $35,047 per mile of state-controlled highway — while New Jersey spent the most — $2,069,020 per mile of state-controlled highway.
Overall, New Jersey ranked last, 50th, in the nation in performance and cost-effectiveness — reportedly due in part to having the nation’s worst urban traffic congestion — while also spending the most money per mile. Rhode Island, Alaska, Hawaii, and Connecticut joined New Jersey in the bottom five of the overall rankings.
In some of the individual categories, Massachusetts’ highways had the country’s lowest fatality rate, while South Carolina’s had the highest. Wyoming’s highways had the least traffic congestion, whereas drivers in New Jersey and California experienced the worst traffic jams. Alaska had the bumpiest urban interstate pavement condition, and Delaware had the smoothest.
This edition of the Reason Foundation’s Annual Highway Report is based on spending and performance data that state highway agencies submitted to the federal government for the year 2015, the most recent year with complete data available.
The overall cost-effectiveness rankings are below. Detailed information about each state’s results, as well as each of the categories, is available here.
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State Highways: Overall Performance and Cost-Effectiveness Rankings
1. North Dakota 2. Kansas 3. South Dakota 4. Nebraska 5. South Carolina 6. Montana 7. Idaho 8. Wyoming 9. Missouri 10. Utah 11. Mississippi 12. Tennessee 13. Kentucky 14. North Carolina 15. Iowa 16. Arizona 17. Alabama 18. Georgia 19. Delaware 20. Nevada 21. Oregon 22. Texas 23. Maine 24. New Mexico 25. Minnesota 26. Ohio 27. Virginia 28. Illinois 29. Arkansas 30. New Hampshire 31. Colorado 32. Michigan 33. Oklahoma 34. Indiana 35. Florida 36. West Virginia 37. Louisiana 38. Wisconsin 39. Vermont 40. Maryland 41. Pennsylvania 42. California 43. Washington 44. Massachusetts 45. New York 46. Connecticut 47. Hawaii 48. Alaska 49. Rhode Island 50. New Jersey
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