Missouri Ranks 9th in the Nation in Highway Performance and Cost-Effectiveness

Missouri’s highway system ranks 9th in the nation in overall cost-effectiveness and condition.

According to the Annual Highway Report by Reason Foundation, this is a two-spot improvement from Missouri’s ranking of 11th overall in the last evaluation of the condition, safety, and costs of roads and bridges in all 50 states.

In safety and condition categories, Missouri’s highways rank 23rd in urban Interstate pavement condition, 18th in rural Interstate pavement condition, 22nd in urban arterial pavement condition, 14th in rural arterial pavement condition, 39th in structurally deficient bridges, 32nd in urban fatality rate, and 26th in rural fatality rate.

Missouri ranks 20th out of the 50 states in traffic congestion, and its drivers spend 15 hours a year stuck in traffic congestion.

In spending and cost-effectiveness, Missouri ranks 3rd in capital and bridge disbursements, which are the costs of building new roads and bridges and widening existing ones. Missouri ranks 27th in maintenance spending, such as the costs of repaving roads and filling in potholes. Missouri’s administrative disbursements, including office spending that doesn’t make its way to roads, ranks 5th nationwide.

The categories in which the state improved the most from the previous report was urbanized area congestion (38th to 20th) and administrative disbursements (14th to 5th).

Missouri worsened the most in rural Interstate pavement condition (9th to 26th).

Compared to neighboring and nearby states, Missouri’s overall highway performance is better than Kentucky’s (11th), Kansas’ (22nd), Arkansas’ (28th), Nebraska’s (30th), Iowa’s (31st), and Illinois’ (36th).

Comparing its overall performance to similarly populated states, Missouri ranks ahead of both Indiana (20th) and Maryland (32nd).

Missouri’s highway system ranks 9th out of 50 states overall this year, ranked 11th in last year’s report, and was 3rd in the nation five years ago, in 2019.

“In terms of improving in the road condition and performance categories, Missouri should focus on reducing maintenance and other disbursements. The state ranks in the bottom half in both categories,” said Baruch Feigenbaum, lead author of the 28th Annual Highway Report and senior managing director of transportation policy at Reason Foundation. “Reducing the percentage of structurally deficient bridges in the state and lowering the urban fatality rate should also be priorities for Missouri, as it ranks in the bottom 20 in both of those categories.”

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.