National Highway Ratings
The Reason Foundation did a study on state highway conditions and cost effectiveness. I'd been reading recently that California's highways were among the worst in the nation and wanted to see how California ranked among other states. Here's the top and bottom 5 rankings:
Best state highways:
North Dakota
Kansas
Wyoming
New Mexico
Montana
The worst:
New Jersey
California
Hawaii
Rhode Island
Alaska
I keep reading about how bad California freeways are. I realize the only freeway I frequent is from Eureka to San Francisco but, quite honestly, that stretch of freeway seems fine to me. I wonder what the good freeways must be like?
As far as cost per mile goes, I've probably mentioned more than once here that California ranks third highest in the country as far as dollars per mile of road built. This recent Dan Walters commentary claims we're up to number 2 now.
Does that mean California is spending even more, or did another state reduce its spending ratio somehow?
posted by Fred Mangels @ 8:30 AM
3 comments
3 Comments:
Interesting that the worst states include two of the largest and three of the smallest.
I haven't read all of Reason's criteria for judging, but I'm somewhat skeptical of the ratings.
Places like Alaska with real cold temperatures will have bad roads because of frost heave and such. That would be something that would be difficult to keep up with regardless of money spent, or so it would seem.
Last time I was in Alaska, we drove from Anchorage to beyond Mt. Mckinley. It was quite a drive- hundreds of miles- and it seemed to me the roads we drove on were real nice, just watch out for large animals like moose.
California was knocked for having congested urban interstates. Aging bridges were also considered, and California has lots of bridges needing replacement.
You aren't likely to notice any issues between Eureka and San Francisco because it's not congested and a bridge seems fine until it collapses.
Post a Comment
<< Home