Drive Safely? Not So Much In Rhode Island

LOS ANGELES, July 31, 2008 /PRNewswire-USNewswire via COMTEX/ --

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
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 (so much for those Massholes!); 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 ( www.reason.org) is a nonprofit think tank dedicated to advancing free minds and free markets.

SOURCE Reason Foundation http://www.reason.org