Study Ranks States on Road Conditions and Cost-Effectiveness

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Study Ranks States on Road Conditions and Cost-Effectiveness
    North Dakota, Montana and New Mexico have best highway systems; New
Jersey, Alaska and Rhode Island have the worst; Deficient bridges would
take 62 years to fix at current repair rate

    LOS ANGELES, July 31 /PRNewswire-USNewswire/ -- North Dakota does the
best job maintaining its roads and bridges and New Jersey has the
worst-performing, least cost-effective highway system in the nation,
according to an annual study that measures each state's road conditions and
expenditures.

    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 an astonishing 53 percent of bridges are
deficient. At our current rate of repair it will take 62 years for today's
deficient bridges to be brought up to date.

    California has the worst traffic congestion: 83 percent of its urban
interstates are congested. But other states are becoming increasingly
gridlocked too: 18 states report at least half of their urban interstates
are jammed. Even South Dakota has traffic congestion now.



    Reason Foundation's 17th Annual Report on the Performance of State
Highway Systems 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.

    Ranking State Highway Systems on Performance and Cost-Effectiveness

    1. North Dakota

    2. Montana

    3. New Mexico

    4. Wyoming

    5. Kansas

    6. South Carolina

    7. South Dakota

    8. Nebraska

    9. Kentucky

    10. Georgia

    11. Oregon

    12. Texas

    13. Missouri

    14. Idaho

    15. Indiana

    16. Virginia

    17. Ohio

    18. Minnesota

    19. Tennessee

    20. Nevada

    21. Wisconsin

    22. Maine

    23. North Carolina

    24. West Virginia

    25. Utah

    26. Arizona

    27. Arkansas

    28. Delaware

    29. Alabama

    30. Vermont

    31. Colorado

    32. Iowa

    33. Oklahoma

    34. Illinois

    35. Connecticut

    36. Pennsylvania

    37. Maryland

    38. Mississippi

    39. Washington

    40. Louisiana

    41. Florida

    42. Michigan

    43. Massachusetts

    44. California

    45. New York

    46. New Hampshire

    47. Hawaii

    48. Rhode Island

    49. Alaska

    50. New Jersey

    Full Report Online

    Reason Foundation's 17th Annual Report on the Performance of State
Highway Systems (1984-2006), is online at http://reason.org/ps369/.

    About Reason Foundation

    Reason Foundation (http://www.reason.org) is a nonprofit think tank dedicated
to advancing free minds and free markets.
SOURCE Reason Foundation
http://www.reason.org
CONTACT:
Chris Mitchell, Director of Communications,
Reason Foundation, +1-310-367-6109