Many state highway programs don't make the Reason Foundation grade

Bloomberg News

Southern states lead the nation in managing their road networks efficiently, while high costs and a lack of clear strategy plague many systems in the West and Northeast, a Reason Foundation analysis found.

The libertarian think tank's 29th Annual Highway Report said Virginia, Georgia, South Carolina, North Carolina, and Ohio have the best-performing, most cost-effective highway systems in the country. Alaska, California, Washington, New York, and Louisiana rank worst in cost-effectiveness and overall condition.

"The states performing well, particularly in the South, decided two decades ago to prioritize good road care," said Baruch Feigenbaum, senior managing director of transportation policy at Reason and lead author of the report. "These top states share several characteristics that allow them to maintain lower costs, including better-organized departments of transportation and the use of cost-benefit performance tools."

The study ranks the quality of all 50 states' road and bridge systems in 13 categories using a methodology developed by David T. Hartgen in the early 1990s.

Top-performing states use quantitative cost-benefit selection tools to choose projects based on what makes the most sense, such as those that improve congestion or safety, Feigenbaum said. Georgia, for example, has had a system for efficiently repairing potholes for 15 years, employing a special unit it established and sharing information with neighboring states like North Carolina, South Carolina, and Virginia, he said.

States that rank in the bottom five typically lack this system of quantitative project selection, he said.

Characteristics lower-ranked states share are high costs to maintain their roadways, often compounded by factors like unionized labor or different rules leading to inefficiencies, even in rural areas, Feigenbaum said. Many of the worst-performing states also lack an overarching vision for transportation, he said.

"California serves as a key example of poor performance despite high spending, possessing one of the highest or second-highest funding levels in the country," Feigenbaum said.

The Golden State's challenges include high gas taxes that are not fully spent on transportation, and the diversion of dedicated highway funds such as those from Senate Bill 1 funding to other purposes, Feigenbaum said.

The Road Repair and Accountability Act of 2017, also known as SB 1, is expected to generate $54 billion by 2027 primarily through a gas tax increase.

Questions have been raised as to whether the Act is living up to its promise.

The measure was enacted after a long political struggle that sparked a ballot measure to repeal it, which failed, and the recall of a Democratic state senator who won his seat back in the next election.

The Federal Highway Administration has previously critiqued the state for not using quantitative metrics, Feigenbaum said, noting that the legislature often has significant say in which projects the California Department of Transportation funds. As a result, many projects fail to meet their intended goals, such as reducing the fatality rate or congestion, particularly acute in the Los Angeles and San Francisco metro regions, he said.

Feigenbaum noted that funding levels are important on both ends, with states doing poorly when funding is insufficient, like Oklahoma, or when high funding is poorly managed, like California. States in the middle range of spending often perform the best, he said.

Despite the attention bridge safety has drawn since the Minneapolis Interstate-35W bridge collapsed in 2007, killing 13 people and injuring 145, and with other incidents in the intervening years, he said bridge maintenance continues to be a persistent national issue.

The Minnesota bridge collapse highlighted infrastructure vulnerabilities and prompted discussions on bond financing and federal grants for transportation, with recent projects like the John A. Blatnik Bridge linking Superior, Wisconsin, to Duluth, Minnesota using bonds.

The report said that more than 42,000 of the nation's 618,923 highway bridges—nearly 7%—are still structurally deficient. While this is an improvement from a decade ago when the percentage was above 10%, several states are still performing poorly, Feigenbaum said.

The five states with the worst structurally deficient bridge ratings are Rhode Island, West Virginia, Iowa, South Dakota, and Maine, according to the study. These states are "head scratchers," he said, because they appear to have prioritized bridge maintenance.

While Pennsylvania has used public-private partnerships to make improvements, other low-ranking states could explore more creative solutions to the benefit of their infrastructure, he said.

With the gas tax facing what Feigenbaum called a "farewell tour" as cars become more efficient and electric vehicle use increases, four states are seeing headway by implementing a mileage-based user fee program. Both Virginia and Utah — a top-ten state — have programs that allow drivers to pay based on mileage, he said. This innovation is linked to their success, although many states have simply increased their gas tax, he said.

The report's major takeaway for state DOTs is the importance of having a good quantitative cost-benefit selection process, a well-organized DOT, and a clear focus on what they are trying to achieve, Feigenbaum. While some cost issues may be out of a state's control, most factors can be managed, and the top states are perennial leaders, he said.