Not-for-profit organization USAFacts analyzed US Bureau of Transportation data from 2020 to find out which of the country's states have the best- and poorest-quality roads overall. The states were ranked based on what percentage of their road miles were classified as "poor" by the Bureau, which uses the International Roughness Index — measuring how many inches of vertical movement a passenger vehicle experiences while traveling one mile at 50 miles per hour — to judge road quality.
Key Findings:
Rhode Island had the worst roads in the country in 2020, with more than 48 percent of its road miles considered "poor." According to Bureau data, the state's roads only seem to be getting worse; between 2000 and 2020, the percentage of "poor" road miles in the state grew by 33.3 percent.
The next-worst roads were found in New Jersey and Hawaii, where more than 40 percent of the road miles are "poor." New Mexico followed in fourth place, with 34 percent of its road miles found to be of low quality.
As of 2020, Tennessee was home to the highest-quality roads in the US, with just 5.4 percent of its roads classified as "poor." An impressive 94.6 percent of the state's road miles were considered to be in "good" condition by the Bureau of Transportation.
Arkansas improved its road quality more than any other state between 2000 and 2020 — the percentage of its "poor" road miles fell from 34.8 percent to eight percent over the two decades.
Via USAFacts.