This State Has the Highest Quality Roads in America

By Douglas A. McIntyre Updated Jan 11, 4:30AM EST · Published Aug 24, 9:00AM EDT

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This State Has the Highest Quality Roads in America — © Getty Images

What determines the quality of a road? According to experts, how well their surfaces are built or repaired, how congested they are with traffic, the number of fatalities and bridge conditions, among other things. A new study looks at these factors by state to determine which have the highest quality roads and which have the worst. One of the least densely populated states in American took the top position.

The Reason Foundation’s 24th Annual Highway Report is based on state data provided to the federal government. Among other things, the study examined how quickly roads deteriorate compared to how quickly they are repaired. The report looks at state-owned highway systems and how they fared from 1984 to 2016. The results were based on 13 measures, which, in turn, were grouped under categories: highway expenditures per mile, interstate and primary road pavement conditions, urbanized area congestion, bridge conditions and fatality rates. North Dakota finished first in the ratings.

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Even though the investment nationwide in highways has risen, it has not been enough to offset decay. While modest increases in spending can significantly improve roads, some states have not made them.

While North Dakota rated first, population density and state size by square mile were not the primary reasons some states did well and others did not. The report indicates that “Unlike prior years, the top-performing states tend to be a mix of high-population and low population states. Very rural states may have a slight advantage. While rural North Dakota led the rankings for the second year in a row, Virginia and Missouri, two of the 20 most populated states in the country, were 2nd and 3rd. Maine and Kentucky rounded out the top five states.”

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No geographic or square mileage relationship existed among the states that did poorly: Alaska, Hawaii, Massachusetts, New Jersey and Rhode Island. What they did have in common is that they are states that the researchers deem “difficult to improve.” While there are some differences among them, they share one thing in common. They have no money or building capacity to improve their roads faster than they fall apart. North Dakota, however, has both a reasonably good infrastructure and the capacity to repair its roads at a good pace. Ironically, some of the best-maintained state roads are in states with the lowest volume of traffic fatalities.

Overall Highway Performance Rankings, 2016

1. North Dakota
2. Virginia
3. Missouri
4. Maine
5. Kentucky
6. Kansas
7. Tennessee
8. Montana
9. Utah
10. Alabama
11. Wyoming
12. Oregon
13. Idaho
14. South Dakota
15. Nebraska
16. West Virginia
17. North Carolina
18. Ohio
19. Vermont
20. South Carolina
21. New Mexico
22. Minnesota
23. Texas
24. New Hampshire
25. Mississippi
26. Georgia
27. Nevada
28. Illinois
29. Arizona
30. Michigan
31. Iowa
32. Arkansas
33. Indiana
34. Louisiana
35. Pennsylvania
36. Colorado
37. Washington
38. Wisconsin
39. Maryland
40. Florida
41. Oklahoma
42. Delaware
43. California
44. Connecticut
45. New York
46. Massachusetts
47. Hawaii
48. Rhode Island
49. Alaska
50. New Jersey

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About the Author Douglas A. McIntyre →

Douglas A. McIntyre is the co-founder, chief executive officer and editor in chief of 24/7 Wall St. and 24/7 Tempo. He has held these jobs since 2006.

McIntyre has written thousands of articles for 24/7 Wall St. He is an expert on corporate finance, the automotive industry, media companies and international finance. He has edited articles on national demographics, sports, personal income and travel.

His work has been quoted or mentioned in The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, Los Angeles Times, The Washington Post, NBC News, Time, The New Yorker, HuffPost USA Today, Business Insider, Yahoo, AOL, MarketWatch, The Atlantic, Bloomberg, New York Post, Chicago Tribune, Forbes, The Guardian and many other major publications. McIntyre has been a guest on CNBC, the BBC and television and radio stations across the country.

A magna cum laude graduate of Harvard College, McIntyre also was president of The Harvard Advocate. Founded in 1866, the Advocate is the oldest college publication in the United States.

TheStreet.com, Comps.com and Edgar Online are some of the public companies for which McIntyre served on the board of directors. He was a Vicinity Corporation board member when the company was sold to Microsoft in 2002. He served on the audit committees of some of these companies.

McIntyre has been the CEO of FutureSource, a provider of trading terminals and news to commodities and futures traders. He was president of Switchboard, the online phone directory company. He served as chairman and CEO of On2 Technologies, the video compression company that provided video compression software for Adobe’s Flash. Google bought On2 in 2009.