Arizona Ranks 29th in the Nation in Highway Performance and Cost-Effectiveness

Arizona’s highway system ranks 29th in the nation in overall cost-effectiveness and condition.

According to the Annual Highway Report by Reason Foundation, this is a one-spot improvement from Arizona’s ranking of 28th in the last evaluation of the condition, safety, and costs of roads and bridges in all 50 states.

In safety and condition categories, Arizona’s highways rank 12th in urban Interstate pavement condition, 41st in rural Interstate pavement condition, 20th in urban arterial pavement condition, 30th in rural arterial pavement condition, 1st in structurally deficient bridges, 38th in urban fatality rate, and 45th in rural fatality rate.

Arizona ranks 30th out of the 50 states in traffic congestion, and its drivers spend 23 hours a year stuck in traffic congestion.

In spending and cost-effectiveness, Arizona ranks 27th in capital and bridge disbursements, which are the costs of building new roads and bridges and widening existing ones. Arizona ranks 7th in maintenance spending, such as the costs of repaving roads and filling in potholes. Arizona’s administrative disbursements, including office spending that doesn’t make its way to roads, ranks 41st nationwide.

The categories in which the state improved the most from the previous report were in capital-bridge disbursements (46th to 27th) and other disbursements (44th to 30th).

Arizona worsened the most in the other fatality rate (18th to 41st).

Compared to neighboring and nearby states, Arizona’s overall highway performance is worse than Utah’s (8th), but better than New Mexico’s (38th) and Colorado’s (43rd).

Comparing its overall performance to similarly populated states, Arizona ranks behind Tennessee (5th) but ahead of Washington (47th).

Arizona’s highway system ranks 29th out of 50 states overall this year, ranked 30th in last year’s report, and was 29th in the nation five years ago in 2019.

“In terms of improving in the road condition and performance categories, Arizona should focus on improving its administrative disbursements per mile, rural Interstate pavement condition, rural fatality rate, and other fatality rate. Arizona ranks in the bottom 10 of all the states in each of these categories,” said Baruch Feigenbaum, lead author of the 28th Annual Highway Report and senior managing director of transportation policy at Reason Foundation. “Arizona should also prioritize reducing the number of traffic fatalities on urban and rural roads.”

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.