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States with the Worst Road Infrastructure

| Updated Nov 17, 2019

If you were to compile a list of RVers' arch nemeses, bad roads would be at or near the top for many.

After all, a Federal Highway Administration report indicates 61 percent of the country’s highways are in fair to poor condition.

But have you ever wondered which states have the worst road infrastructure?

I know I have, and that's exactly why a recent report from QuoteWizard called “States with the Worst Road Infrastructure” caught my attention.

The company, which helps consumers compare insurance options, put together the list with the intent of finding a correlation between states that use funds to maintain roads and states that rank well for road infrastructure. In short, they found that states with poor road infrastructure had higher costs per driver, and typically poor road conditions across the board. 

I figured our RV Lifestyle fellow travelers would be most interested in how each state ranked, if for no other reason than to validate your frustrations when riding on rough roads or worse – paying for a costly repair. 

Per QuoteWizard, rankings “are a composite score based on a state’s rating in percentage of poor condition roads, annual cost per motorist from roads in need of repair and percentage of structurally deficient bridges. Rankings 1 to 50 are from 1st as worst overall road infrastructure and 50th as best overall road infrastructure.

Here is the list:

    • Rank (worst) State % roads in poor condition Cost per motorist % bridges structurally deficient % of spending on road repairs
      1 Rhode Island 53 $823 23 2
      2 Oklahoma 33 $900 14 27
      3 West Virginia 31 $723 18 19
      4 Mississippi 30 $820 11 4
      5 Pennsylvania 30 $610 18 22
      6 New Jersey 34 $703 8 57
      7 California 45 $862 6 35
      8 Missouri 23 $699 12 20
      9 Louisiana 25 $624 14 22
      10 New Mexico 31 $768 6 39
      11 Wisconsin 29 $736 8 33
      12 Connecticut 34 $676 7 21
      13 Hawaii 42 $764 5 31
      14 Michigan 24 $645 10 54
      15 Massachusetts 3 $627 9 23
      16 Maine 22 $529 13 65
      17 New Hampshire 25 $525 10 45
      18 South Dakota 14 $563 18 69
      19 South Carolina 18 $557 9 32
      20 Washington 29 $643 4 21
      21 New York 19 509 10 43
      22 Illinois 19 $586 8 4
      23 Colorado 22 $637 5 30
      24 Alaska 20 $450 10 39
      25 Utah 22 $694 2 26
      26 North Dakota 10 $479 14 68
      27 Kansas 10 $591 8 33
      28 Ohio 18 $544 6 4
      29 Iowa 9 $362 20 40
      30 Nebraska 7 $466 14 53
      31 Alabama 14 $506 7 41
      32 Arizona 19 $576 2 15
      33 Montana 11 $472 9 45
      34 Minnesota 15 $542 5 31
      35 Indiana 13 $480 7 20
      36 North Carolina 13 $336 10 11
      37 Texas 11 $682 1 15
      38 Delaware 19 $486 4 19
      39 Arkansas 9 $543 5 19
      40 Kentucky 10 $434 7 30
      41 Nevada 14 $536 1 21
      42 Wyoming 8 $356 9 54
      43 Vermont 17 $418 5 46
      44 Idaho 5 $427 8 36
      45 Virginia 10 $430 5 19
      46 Maryland 11 $356 5 20
      47 Oregon 7 $268 5 25
      48 Florida 8 $351 2 37
      49 Georgia 5 $275 4 34
      50 Tennessee 5 $194 4 16

Mike Wendland

Published on 2019-11-17

Mike Wendland is a multiple Emmy-award-winning Journalist, Podcaster, YouTuber, and Blogger, who has traveled with his wife, Jennifer, all over North America in an RV, sharing adventures and reviewing RV, Camping, Outdoor, Travel and Tech Gear for the past 12 years. They are leading industry experts in RV living and have written 18 travel books.

5 Responses to “States with the Worst Road Infrastructure”

November 18, 2019at8:51 am, SamG said:

Last year Pa. spent all it’s .25 gas tax increase road money on state trooper’s pension funding.

November 18, 2019at12:17 am, States with the Worst Road Infrastructure - bet36网站 said:

[…] post States with the Worst Road Infrastructure appeared first on RV […]

November 17, 2019at2:39 pm, cc said:

I suspect this list was compiled by data from transportation (semi trucks) and not the average driver! For example, Kentucky focuses on main highways, so their smaller roads and highways can be quite, um, interesting. Louisiana is clearly behind on maintenance, so their main highways are a mess, but the smaller roads are much better! Texas has awesome roads, but can’t keep up with the wear and tear from Mexico/Gulf transportation which is why certain highways are a complete mess. And can we talk about Indiana, which had never graded any rail road track ever? I would much rather take any of Oklahoma’s attempts at road resurfacing than going over railroad tracks in Indiana!

November 17, 2019at12:15 pm, steve said:

We recently returned from a 6500 mile trip starting in Ga – Texas, NM, Co, Utah, Az, back thru Texas, La, Ms

We found I-10 in NM and I-20 in La were horrible! Especially pulling a 34ft travel trailer.

November 17, 2019at8:43 am, Bob Mahood said:

Very interesting. When we drove in Tennessee, we really did notice the well maintained highways, and best ranking confirmed what we thought. A little surprised at #10 worst rank for New Mexico. Although we only travel the main routes, I-25, I-10, and I-40, those seem to be pretty decent. The interstates in Colorado seem worse to me. I-76 and I-70 have sections that really rattle the dishes in the coach, and I-25 is a continuous repair project.

Comments are closed.

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