Virginia has the 18th best road system in the country in 2004, according to a national survey published by the Reason Foundation. That’s a far-from-stellar performance, but we can console ourselves that we outperform our neighbors in Maryland (38th) and North Carolina (31st). However, the sour pusses among you can take heart that Virginia’s performance fell significantly from the previous year, when it had ranked 11th.
The rankings combine two sets of measures: roadway quality and performance measures, and cost measures. States ranking the highest tend to offer a combination of superior performance at lower cost.
As a generality, Virginia fared well in cost measures — we spend considerably less on our roads than other states — but enjoy middling performance levels.
We ranked 8th lowest in the country in receipts per state-controlled mile: $55,063. That compares to a low of $36,890 in South Carolina and a high of $2,370,630 (not a misprint!!) in New Jersey (Can anyone say “Mafia-dominated construction unions?”)
Virginia was the 2nd lowest state in the country for Capital & Bridge disbursements per
state-controlled mile, 27th lowest for maintenance disbursements, and 7th lowest in administrative disbursements.
In the critical performance measure “urban interstate congestion,” Virginia ranked 21st best with 42.54 percent of our interstate miles congested. A handful of western and Great Plains states enjoy zero percent interstate congestion, but the numbers are high throughout the East Coast. The comparable numbers in Maryland: 68.58 percent. In North Carolina: 72.47 percent.
With 83.33 percent congested interstate miles, California has the worst interstates in the country.
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