According to a recently released study, Virginia’s highways and bridges rank first in overall performance and cost-effectiveness.
The study, the 27th Annual Highway Report, found that the state’s good rural pavement conditions, low fatality rates, a relatively small percentage of deficient bridges, and low highway costs put it above other states across the country as the most cost-effective state highway system.
North Carolina’s solid pavement quality and low costs rank its state-controlled highway system second overall, followed by Tennessee, Georgia, and Connecticut. At the bottom of the rankings were Alaska, New York, Hawaii, and California, the study found.
Reason Foundation looked at all 50 states across 13 categories, including urban and rural pavement conditions, highway fatalities rates, traffic congestion, structurally deficient bridges, and state highway spending.
Nationally, 21 states had roads and bridges that improved in 2020, even though highway spending was slightly lower in 2020 than in 2019. However, the study found that highway fatality rates rose and pavement conditions deteriorated on rural interstate highways and urban arterial roads. American roads, the study found, are in especially bad shape.
Alaska’s high fatality rates and poor urban and rural pavement conditions placed it at the bottom of the list, the study authors said. The study found that New York’s high spending was not cost-efficient because it did not fix its bad urban pavement conditions or the percentage of structurally deficient bridges. Hawaii (48), California (47), and Washington (46) all tended to have high costs that did not translate into the quality pavement or safe road and bridge conditions, the study said.