PROVIDENCE – Rhode Island’s roads are showing signs of improvement, despite remaining among the worst in the nation.
The Ocean State’s highways were ranked No. 42 in the U.S., according to the 27th annual Reason Foundation’s Highway Report, a seven-spot improvement from last year’s No. 49 ranking.
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To determine its rankings, researchers at the Los Angeles-based think tank ranked the performance of state highway systems in 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.
Rhode Island ranked in the bottom 10 nationally in four of the report’s 13 metrics. Its worst ranking was in both urban other principal arterial pavement condition and rural other principal arterial pavement condition, both ranked second-worst in the nation at No. 49.
The report also said Rhode Island’s arterial pavement and bridge quality are both disproportionately poor. A total of 4.25% of Rhode Island’s rural arterial pavement is in poor condition, 5.4 times more than Connecticut and 1.9 times more than New Jersey.
Plus, Rhode Island commuters spend 32.7 hours stuck in traffic congestion, according to the report, which is 1.1 times more than Connecticut drivers but less than New Jersey drivers, ranking No. 46 overall.
Rhode Island’s best rankings were No. 3 in both rural interstate pavement condition and other disbursements per lane-mile.
“To improve in the rankings, Rhode Island should improve its pavement condition, reduce its traffic congestion, and reduce its percentage of deficient bridges. The state has average costs but still ranks in the bottom three states in both arterial pavement condition categories and in percent structurally deficient bridges,” Baruch Feigenbaum, lead author of the Annual Highway Report and senior managing director of transportation policy at Reason Foundation, said in the report. “While it may be challenging for Rhode Island to reduce its spending, if the state could improve its arterial pavement quality to the national average and reduce its percentage of structurally deficient bridges somewhat, it would move up in the overall rankings substantially.”
Virginia ranked No. 1 overall, followed by North Carolina, Tennessee, Georgia and Connecticut.
Across the rest of New England, New Hampshire ranked No. 14, followed by Massachusetts at No. 20, Maine at No. 32 and Vermont at No. 38.
Rhode Island’s roads annually rank among the worst in the nation. Last month, for the fourth consecutive year the state’s roads were identified as the worst in the nation by QuoteWIzard.
In November, QuoteWizard ranked Rhode Island as the third-worst state in the U.S. for potholes.
In December, ConsumerAffairs listed Rhode Island second in its ranking of the worst roads in the country, after Hawaii. That ranking was an improvement for the Ocean State. In 2021, ConsumerAffairs ranked Rhode Island as having the worst roads in the country.
