The States Pouring Money Into Their Highways

The Reason Foundation has released the 24th edition of its Annual Highway Report which ranks U.S. state highway systems across 13 categories such as total expenditure, interstate and primary road pavement conditions, the condition of bridges and the number of fatalities. This year's report found that the condition of America's highways is deteriorating with many states struggling to repair outdated infrastructure, especially structurally deficient bridges and the pavement along some sections of interstate. Some states are spending far more money on their highways than others and most of the funding is going towards capital and bridge, maintenance and administration costs.

The data in the report is from 2016 and that year, New Jersey pumped $511 million into its highway network. By comparison, second placed Florida "only" spent $241 million on its highways while Massachusetts invested $216 million (though the most recent figure for that state is 2010). New Jersey was named as the state with the worst road conditions in the country by the report, ranking pooly in far more categories than it ranks hightly. For example, the garden state also has the highest spending per mile of roadway and the worst traffic congestion of any state. North Dakota ranked first this year for overall performance and cost-effectiveness of its highways for the second year running. Total spending across all U.S. states came to $139 billion, a 4.1 percent decrease on $145 billion in 2015.