The State of State Highways

A new Reason Foundation review of the condition of state highways (which includes interstates) finds that, in general, they are improving. Highways are doing particularly well in Georgia, Kansas, Missouri, Nebraska, Ohio, and Texas. However, highways in Alaska, California, Hawaii, Massachusetts, Michigan, and New Jersey are faring poorly.

“A widening gap seems to be emerging between most states that are making progress, and a few states that are finding it difficult to improve,” says the report. Moreover, “There is also increasing evidence that higher-level road systems (Interstates, other freeways and principal arterials) are in better shape than lower-level road systems, particularly local roads.”

Some of the differences between states are purely geographic. For example, fatality rates per billion vehicle miles are higher on rural roads than urban roads, so states with higher shares of rural driving, such as South Carolina and Virginia, have higher overall fatality rates.

Other differences, however, are simply fiscal. Texas manages more than four times as many miles of road than California, yet its roads are in much better shape. North Carolina, which manages all roads that in other states would be considered county roads, is doing better than other states of a similar size that manage only a tenth as many road miles.
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The finding that “higher-level” roads are in better shape than local roads confirms the Antiplanner’s view that local roads are in the worst shape. This report doesn’t consider city streets, but in many cities they are in particularly poor condition.

A major reason for this is that state roads tend to be funded out of user fees while city streets tend to be funded out of property taxes and other general funds. Since many states dedicate most or all gas taxes and tolls to road construction and maintenance, these functions are well funded. City officials, however, may see little reason to spend general funds on streets when they could be spent on more exciting (but more useless) projects such as streetcars and other urban monuments. For example, as noted here before, Portland is spending less than 13 percent of what is needed to keep its streets in their current poor state of repair, much less enough to improve them.

According to a year-old report from The Road Information Project, cities with the worst roads tend to be in California, Hawaii, Massachusetts, and other states with poor road conditions. In these cities, poorly maintained city streets cost the average motorists $500 to $800 per year.

Advocates of property taxes for funding city streets argue that property values are enhanced by the streets so property owners should fund them. However, this system provides poor links between road users and road providers, making it too easy for cities to ignore the streets in favor of other things that property owners may support. In the long run, American highways, roads, and streets will do best when they are funded exclusively out of user fees rather than general funds.