ND #1: Ranking State Highway Systems on Performance and Cost-Effectiveness: North Dakota and Missouri Rank Best, New Jersey and Alaska Rank Last -- Source -- November 28, 2020

Link here.

In the overall rankings of state highway performance and cost-effectiveness, Reason Foundation’s 25th Annual Highway Report finds North Dakota, Missouri, and Kansas have the nation’s best state-owned road systems. In terms of return on investment, New Jersey, Alaska, Delaware, and Massachusetts have the worst-performing state highway systems, the study finds.

Of the nation’s most populous states, Ohio (ranked 13th overall), North Carolina (14th)—which manages the largest state-owned highway system, and Texas (18th)—with the second-largest amount of state mileage, are doing the best job of combining road performance and cost-effectiveness. In contrast, New York (ranked 44th overall), California (43rd), and Florida (40th) are in the bottom 10 overall.

The 25th Annual Highway Report finds the general quality and safety of the nation’s highways has incrementally improved as spending on state-owned roads increased by 9 percent, up to $151.8 billion, since the previous report. Of the Annual Highway Report’s nine categories focused on performance, including structurally deficient bridges and traffic congestion, the country made incremental progress in seven of them.

In the report’s spending categories, Missouri, Mississippi, South Carolina, North Dakota, and Tennessee reported the lowest expenditures per mile. New Jersey, Massachusetts, Alaska, Delaware, and Maryland had the highest costs most per-mile. In total, the 50 states disbursed $151.8 billion for state-owned roads, a 9.2 percent increase from $139 billion in 2016, the previous data available.

North Dakota specific data: North Dakota ranks 1st in the nation in highway performance and cost-effectiveness. Link here. 

North Dakota’s highway system ranks 1st in the nation in overall cost-effectiveness and condition, according to the Annual Highway Report by Reason Foundation. This is no change from the previous report, where North Dakota also ranked 1st overall.

In safety and performance categories, North Dakota ranks 21st in overall fatality rate, 42nd in structurally deficient bridges, 3rd in traffic congestion, 5th in urban Interstate pavement condition, and 5th in rural Interstate pavement condition.

On spending, North Dakota ranks 4th in total spending per mile and 12th in capital and bridge costs per mile.

 “To improve in the rankings, North Dakota needs to reduce its percentage of structurally deficient bridges. North Dakota ranks in the bottom 10 for structurally deficient bridges. Compared to nearby states, the report finds North Dakota’s overall highway performance is better than Minnesota (ranks 15th), Nebraska (ranks 12th), and Wyoming (ranks 36th),” said Baruch Feigenbaum, lead author of the Annual Highway Report and senior managing director of transportation policy at Reason Foundation. “North Dakota is doing better than comparable states like Montana (ranks 10th) and South Dakota (ranks 11th). 

North Dakota’s best rankings are in maintenance disbursements per mile (2nd) and urban area traffic congestion (3rd).

With only a few bridges in the state and the recent completion of the Long X bridge south of Watford City, the ratings in some categories should improve for North Dakota next year.