Home News Story R.I. roads still among worst in the nation, studies find

R.I. roads still among worst in the nation, studies find

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PBN Staff

-

08/06/2025

Highway — CONSUMERAFFAIRS and the Reason Foundation this year each ranked Rhode Island roads near the bottom of their annual rankings. / PBN FILE PHOTO/BRIAN MCDONALD

PROVIDENCE – Rhode Island’s roads continue to be rated among the worst in the nation. Both ConsumerAffairs and the Reason Foundation this year ranked the Ocean State near the bottom in each of their annual rankings. In February, ConsumerAffairs ranked Rhode Island roads the fifth-worst in the nation, up four spots from 2024 when the

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PROVIDENCE – Rhode Island’s roads continue to be rated among the worst in the nation. Both ConsumerAffairs and the Reason Foundation this year ranked the Ocean State near the bottom in each of their annual rankings. In February, ConsumerAffairs ranked Rhode Island roads the fifth-worst in the nation, up four spots from 2024 when the Oklahoma-based consumer news platform listed the Ocean State as the worst in the nation. The annual report reflects residents’ feedback from email surveys, along with road scores by the Federal Highway Administration, fatal car crash data and the amount of money each state spends per mile of highway. Researchers at ConsumerAffairs concluded that 32% of Rhode Island rural roads are in poor condition, despite there only being 347 miles of rural roadway within its borders. Urban roads weren’t much better, according to ConsumerAffairs, with 39.3% in poor condition. However, there was some good news. Traffic fatalities in Rhode Island are the lowest in the nation at 0.69 per 100 million miles traveled, the report stated. “While [Rhode Island] roads may be rough, they are relatively safer than those in other states,” ConsumerAffairs said. Among the other New England states in the road conditions study, Connecticut ranks No. 12, Maine ranks No. 20, New Hampshire ranks No. 31 and Vermont ranks No. 44. Indiana has the best roads in the nation and New Mexico has the worst, according to ConsumerAffairs. In March, the 28th annual Reason Foundation’s Highway Report ranked Rhode Island No. 42 in the U.S., which was the same as its previous study in April 2023. To determine its rankings, researchers at the Los Angeles-based think tank ranked the performance of state highway systems in 2022 (the 2023 report used data from 2020, with congestion and bridge condition data from 2021). Each state’s overall rating was determined by rankings in 13 categories, including highway expenditures per mile, interstate and primary road pavement conditions, urbanized area congestion, bridge conditions and fatality rates. In the Reason Foundation’s safety and condition categories, Rhode Island’s highways rank No. 1 in rural interstate pavement condition, No. 2 in urban fatality rate, No. 4 in urban interstate pavement condition, No. 31 in rural fatality rate, No. 47 in structurally deficient bridges, No. 48 in urban arterial pavement condition and No. 49 in rural arterial pavement condition. The study also ranks Rhode Island No. 38 in traffic congestion, with its drivers spending 42 hours a year stuck in traffic congestion. In spending and cost-effectiveness, Rhode Island ranks No. 30 in capital and bridge disbursements, which are the costs of building new roads and bridges and widening existing ones. Rhode Island also ranks No. 30 in maintenance spending, such as the costs of repaving roads and filling in potholes. The state’s administrative disbursements, including office spending that doesn’t make its way to roads, ranks No. 20 nationwide, according to the study. The categories in which Rhode Island improved the most from the 2023 report are urban interstate pavement condition, where it moved to No. 4 in the nation from No. 18, and urban fatality rate, which ranks No. 2 compared with No. 16. Rhode Island worsened the most in capital-bridge disbursements, dropping to No. 30 from No. 22. Compared to neighboring and nearby states, Rhode Island’s overall highway performance is better than New York at No. 45 but worse than Connecticut at No. 13 and Massachusetts at No. 40. “In terms of improving in the road condition and performance categories, Rhode Island should focus on improving both rural and urban arterial pavement condition. The state ranks in the bottom three in both categories, its worst rankings by far,” said Baruch Feigenbaum, lead author of the report and senior managing director of transportation policy at Reason Foundation. “Reducing the percentage of structurally deficient bridges should also be a priority for Rhode Island, as the state ranks in the bottom five in bridges.” As part of its best states ranking released in May, U.S. News & World Report ranked Rhode Island’s roads the worst in the nation, according to the percentage of road miles considered to be in poor condition in each state by the Federal Highway Administration. The top five best roads according to that study are in Indiana, South Dakota, Kansas, Wyoming and Vermont. Among the rest of the New England states in that study, Maine ranks No. 25, New Hampshire ranks No. 26, Massachusetts ranks No. 38 and Connecticut ranks No. 47.