California Ranks 49th in the Nation in Highway Performance and Cost-Effectiveness

California’s highway system ranks 49th in the nation in overall cost-effectiveness and condition.

According to the Annual Highway Report by Reason Foundation, this is a two-spot fall from California’s ranking of 47th overall in

the last evaluation of the condition, safety, and costs of roads and bridges in all 50 states.

In safety and condition categories, California’s highways rank 47th in urban Interstate pavement condition, 46th in rural Interstate pavement condition, 50th in urban arterial pavement condition, 41st in rural arterial pavement condition, 25th in structurally deficient bridges, 33rd in urban fatality rate, and 28th in rural fatality rate.

California ranks 44th out of the 50 states in traffic congestion, and its drivers spend 60 hours a year stuck in traffic congestion.

In spending and cost-effectiveness, California ranks 43rd in capital and bridge disbursements, which are the costs of building new roads and bridges and widening existing ones. California ranks 44th in maintenance spending, such as the costs of repaving roads and filling in potholes. California’s administrative disbursements, including office spending that doesn’t make its way to roads, ranks 35th nationwide.

The category in which the state improved the most from the previous report was rural fatality rate (39th to 28th).

California worsened the most in urban fatalities (23rd to 33rd).

Compared to neighboring and nearby states, California’s overall highway performance is worse than Nevada’s (24th), Arizona’s (29th), Oregon’s (35th), and Washington’s (47th).

Comparing its overall performance to similarly populated states, California ranks behind Florida (14th) and Texas (25th).

California’s highway system ranks 49th out of 50 states overall this year, ranked 47th in last year’s report, and was 43rd in the nation five years ago, in 2019.

“In terms of improving in the road condition and performance categories, California should focus on improving urban and rural Interstate pavement quality, improving both rural and urban principal arterial pavement quality, reducing maintenance and capital-bridge disbursements, and improving urbanized area congestion. The state ranks in the bottom 10 states for each of these performance-based categories,” said Baruch Feigenbaum, lead author of the 28th Annual Highway Report and senior managing director of transportation policy at Reason Foundation. It also ranks in the bottom 10 for other fatality rate, which is another weakness.

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.