Best to Worst: Study ranks US state highway conditions

CHARLOTTE, N.C. — North Dakota does the best job maintaining its roads and bridges in the U.S., while New Jersey has the worst-performing, least cost-effective highway system in the nation.

That’s according to an annual Reason Foundation study that measures each U.S. state’s road conditions and expenditures.

Also from the study: Massachusetts’ roads are the safest; Montana’s are the deadliest.

Across the country, 24.1 percent of bridges are deficient or functionally obsolete. In Rhode Island, over 53 percent of bridges are deficient. At the current rate of repair it will take 62 years for today’s deficient bridges to be brought up to date.

California, not surprisingly, has the most traffic congestion: 83 percent of its urban interstates are congested. But other states are becoming increasingly gridlocked: 18 states report at least half of their urban interstates are jammed.

The Reason Foundation’s 17th Annual Report on the Performance of State Highway Systems by University of North Carolina at Charlotte Emeritus Transportation Professor David Hartgen, released July 31, measures the condition of all state-owned roads and highways from 1984 to 2006.

The study calculates the effectiveness and performance of each state in 12 different categories, including pavement condition, bridge condition, traffic fatalities, congestion, highway maintenance costs, and administrative costs.

— via Truckinginfo.com