Providence is a beautiful city, but according to a recent study, the streets are anything but.
Flickr user David Friedel
America’s road infrastructure is in bad shape. It’s one of the few things that everyone seems to agree on, but due to the massive scale of the problem and the costs involved, not much is being done and the problem is getting worse.
To put this into perspective, let’s take a look at a road study done by the Federal Highway Administration and interpreted by the car insurance website QuoteWizard. The study evaluates the streets of all 50 states based on three criteria:
- Percentage of roads rated “bad”
- Annual cost per driver due to road conditions
- Percentage of state bridges classified as structurally deficient
Well, while you might expect a place like New York, Massachusetts, or California to perform the worst, none of these states will hit the top 5. What to do? At the top of the list is Rhode Island, where over half (53% to be precise) of its roads are rated poor, 23% of its bridges are structurally defective, and the average cost is $ 823 per driver per year. Quite impressive for a country with just over a million inhabitants.
Next on the list are Oklahoma and West Virginia with 33% and 31% poorly rated roads, respectively. The top 5 are rounded off by Mississippi and Pennsylvania each with 30%, although Mississippi PA excludes PA due to its significantly higher cost for drivers – USD 820 compared to USD 610.
Another important factor that needs to be considered in all of this, even though it is not weighted in the ranking, is how much of its budget each country spends on road maintenance. For Rhode Island it is only 2%. California – a state with 39 times the population – spends 35% of its budget on roads and is number 7 on the list. Curious which country spends the most? It is South Dakota with 69%.
In addition to the lack of spending, there are several factors that are likely to help Rhode Island top the list. A tiny population of a million people means that there is a small tax base, and that means money must be tight. There are also some pretty nasty winters in which freeze / thaw cycles devastate the asphalt in the form of dramatically accelerated wear.
What is the solution to all of this? At this point, the only thing that could affect America’s infrastructure problems is a dramatic federal government investment in road and bridge construction. Will that come in time to help the people of Rhode Island? It’s hard to say, but we hope so.
Representatives from the Federal Highway Administration and the Department of Transportation from Rhode Island did not immediately respond to Roadshow’s request for comment.
Look at that:
Driverless cars accelerate traffic
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