The term "infrastructure" is a stand-in for a great variety of national and local concerns—from clean water to electric grids to access to the internet—but traditionally the term has referred to the condition of the nation's roads, bridges, and highways. The most recent data from the Bureau of Transportation Statistics reveals that 18.3% of roads across the United States are not in acceptable condition and a 2024 survey from Consumer Affairs saw drivers give their states' roads an average score of 7 out of 10.
It's not particularly surprising when you consider how much wear U.S. roads get. Additional data from the Bureau of Transportation Statistics shows that Americans traveled more than 5.3 trillion miles on highways in 2021—nearly 240 times more than all forms of transit combined and more than 30 times the mileage traveled by air.
The 2021 Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act dedicated $110 billion to building, expanding, and improving roads, bridges, and other major surface transportation projects nationwide. At the time of the IIJA's approval, approximately 40% of all roads and bridges across the U.S. were classified as being in poor or mediocre condition.
Among the IIJA's most notable investments is $40 billion for the repair, rehabilitation, and/or replacement of structurally deficient bridges, which is the single largest financial infusion into this aspect of surface transportation since the construction of the Interstate Highway System in the 1950s. As bridges and viaducts are crucial components of every highway, this investiture offers even more bang per buck, benefiting both roads and bridges at once.
Citing an April 2023 report from the Reason Foundation, Stacker compiled a ranking of all U.S. states by the condition of their highways, from best to worst, with lower rankings indicating highways are in worse condition. This index looks at a variety of factors including infrastructure condition, funding, and crash fatality data to create the ranking. Subrankings for some of those categories are included for each state.
The ranking considers each state's resources, geographic conditions, size of the highway system, and traffic. The comparative performance scores are calculated based on road system performance and expenditure per mile. States with the highest-rated highway systems would thus be expected to favor both road users (due to higher-quality infrastructure) and taxpayers (because of lower maintenance costs per mile). This assessment method allows for a more standardized comparison of states and, therefore, results in a mix of large and small states at the top of the ranking.
