Alabama Ranks 17th in the Nation in Highway Performance and Cost-Effectiveness

Alabama’s highway system ranks 17th in the nation in overall cost-effectiveness and condition.

According to the Annual Highway Report by Reason Foundation, this is a two-spot worsening from Alabama’s ranking of 15th overall in the last evaluation of the condition, safety, and costs of roads and bridges in all 50 states.

In safety and condition categories, Alabama’s highways rank 29th in urban Interstate pavement condition, 33rd in rural Interstate pavement condition, 1st in urban arterial pavement condition, 4th in rural arterial pavement condition, 8th in structurally deficient bridges, 29th in urban fatality rate, and 33rd in rural fatality rate.

Alabama ranks 17th out of the 50 states in traffic congestion, and its drivers spend 13 hours a year stuck in traffic congestion.

In spending and cost-effectiveness, Alabama ranks 22nd in capital and bridge disbursements, which are the costs of building new roads and bridges and widening existing ones.

Alabama ranks 1st in maintenance spending, such as the costs of repaving roads and filling in potholes. Alabama’s administrative disbursements, including office spending that doesn’t make its way to roads, ranks 42nd nationwide.

The categories in which the state improved the most from the previous report were urban fatality rate (from 38th to 29th) and urban Interstate pavement (from 36th to 29th).

Alabama worsened the most in the other disbursements (from 22nd to 46th).

Compared to neighboring and nearby states, Alabama’s overall highway performance is better than Mississippi’s (18th) and Arkansas’ (28th) but worse than South Carolina’s (2nd), Georgia’s (6th), and Florida’s (14th).

Comparing its overall performance to similarly populated states, Alabama ranks behind Kentucky (11th) but ahead of Louisiana (46th).

Alabama’s highway system ranks 17th out of 50 states overall this year, ranked 15th in last year’s report, and was 10th in the nation five years ago, in 2019.

“In terms of improving in the road condition and performance categories, Alabama should focus on reducing administrative disbursements and other disbursements. These are the only categories in which the state ranks in the bottom 10,” said Baruch Feigenbaum, lead author of the 28th Annual Highway Report and senior managing director of transportation policy at Reason Foundation. “Reducing the number of traffic fatalities on urban and rural roads should also be a priority for Alabama.”

Reason Foundation’s 28th Annual Highway Report measures the condition and cost-effectiveness of state-controlled highways in 13 categories, including pavement and bridge conditions, traffic fatalities, and spending. In the performance categories, ranking first implies the state has the best or lowest fatality rate and its road pavement is in the best condition. A ranking of 50th in performance categories means the state has the worst fatality rates or pavement conditions. In simplified terms, in the cost-effectiveness categories, a rank of 50 means the state spends more money, and a first-place ranking means the state spends less money than other states in that category.

The report’s data are primarily information each state directly reported to the Federal Highway Administration for 2022. Better Roads and Bridges provides the deficient bridge data, and the Texas A&M Transportation Institute provides the traffic congestion data.
Please see the complete 28th Annual Highway Report for detailed methodology and a comprehensive list of data sources.