Pennsylvania Ranks 37th in the Nation in Highway Performance and Cost-Effectiveness

Pennsylvania’s highway system ranks 37th in the nation in overall cost-effectiveness and condition.

According to the Annual Highway Report by Reason Foundation, this is a four-spot improvement from Pennsylvania’s ranking of 41st overall in the last evaluation of the condition, safety, and costs of roads and bridges in all 50 states.

In safety and condition categories, Pennsylvania’s highways rank 39th in urban Interstate pavement condition, 37th in rural Interstate pavement condition, 37th in urban arterial pavement condition, 31st in rural arterial pavement condition, 45th in structurally deficient bridges, 20th in urban fatality rate, and 12th in rural fatality rate.

Pennsylvania ranks 42nd out of the 50 states in traffic congestion, and its drivers spend 47 hours a year stuck in traffic congestion.

In spending and cost-effectiveness, Pennsylvania ranks 17th in capital and bridge disbursements, which are the costs of building new roads and bridges and widening existing ones. Pennsylvania ranks 37th in maintenance spending, such as the costs of repaving roads and filling in potholes. Pennsylvania’s administrative disbursements, including office spending that doesn’t make its way to roads, ranks 31st nationwide.

The categories in which the state improved the most from the previous report were other disbursements (43rd to 33rd), and other fatality rate (35th to 25th).

Pennsylvania worsened the most in urbanized area congestion (32nd to 42nd).

Compared to neighboring and nearby states, Pennsylvania’s overall highway performance is better than Delaware’s (41st) but worse than Ohio’s (10th), Maryland’s (32nd), West Virginia’s (33rd), and New Jersey’s (34th).

Comparing its overall performance to similarly populated states, Pennsylvania ranks ahead of New York (45th), but worse than Illinois (36th).

“In terms of improving in the road condition and performance categories, Pennsylvania should focus on reducing urbanized area congestion and improving Interstate pavement quality in both urban and rural areas. Pennsylvania ranks in the bottom 15 for all three 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 should also be a priority for Pennsylvania, as the state ranks in the bottom 10 in bridges.”

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.