Alabama Ranks 15th in the Nation in Highway Performance and Cost-Effectiveness

Alabama’s highway system ranks 15^th in the nation in overall cost-effectiveness and condition, according to the Annual Highway Report by Reason Foundation. This is a 13-spot improvement from 28^th in the previous report. However, some categories in the report cannot be compared to previous years due to methodological changes that also impacted some states’ overall rankings. These changes are fully explained in Part 2 and the appendix of the full report.

Alabama ranks in the bottom 15 states nationally in four categories. The state’s 1.56 administrative disbursements per lane-mile ratio is 7.8 times higher than both peer states South Carolina’s and Louisiana’s ratios. The state’s 5.16% of urban Interstate pavement in poor condition is five times higher than South Carolina’s percent but lower than Louisiana’s percent. The state’s 1.45 rural fatality rate is better than Louisiana’s rate but about 1.5 times higher than South Carolina’s rate. Finally, the state’s 1.21 urban fatality rate is 1.1 times higher than South Carolina’s rate but lower than Louisiana’s rate. 

In safety and performance categories, Alabama ranks 36^th in rural fatality rate, 38^th in urban fatality rate, 9^th in structurally deficient bridges, 10^th in traffic congestion, 28^th in rural Interstate pavement condition, and 36^th in urban Interstate pavement condition. 

The state ranks 24^th in capital and bridge costs per mile and 4^th in maintenance spending per mile.

Alabama’s best rankings are in urban arterial pavement condition (2^nd) and maintenance disbursements per mile (4^th). 

Alabama’s worst rankings are in administrative disbursements per mile (42^nd) and urban fatality rate (38^th). 

Alabama’s drivers waste 16.20 hours a year in traffic congestion, ranking 10^th in the nation. 

Alabama’s state-controlled highway mileage makes it the 20^th largest highway system in the country.

“To improve in the report’s overall rankings, Alabama could improve its rural fatality rates, urban fatality rates, urban Interstate pavement condition, and administrative costs,” said Baruch Feigenbaum, lead author of the Annual Highway Report and senior managing director of transportation policy at Reason Foundation. “The state perennially ranks in the bottom 20 of all states in all four categories.” 

Additional Analysis 

Reason Foundation’s Annual Highway Report measures the condition and cost-effectiveness of state-controlled highways in 13 categories, including pavement condition, traffic congestion, structurally deficient bridges, traffic fatalities, and spending (capital, maintenance, administrative, other) per mile.

Compared to nearby states, Alabama’s overall highway performance is worse than Tennessee (ranks 3^rd) and Georgia (ranks 4^th), but better than Mississippi (ranks 18^th). 

Alabama ranks ahead of some comparable states such as Louisiana (ranks 40^th) but behind others like South Carolina (ranks 6^th). 

Alabama has improved 13 places from the previous report. In that report, the state was ranked in the middle of the pack. This year, the state is ranked in the top 15. Alabama benefitted from how the report calculated spending. The state improved its rural pavement condition by 20 spots and its urbanized area congestion by 10 spots. However, the state still ranks in the bottom 15 in four categories (Administrative Disbursements per mile, Urban Interstate Pavement Condition, Rural Fatality Rate, and Urban Fatality Rate). If the state was able to improve those four categories, even slightly, it would vault into the top 10 states. 

Alabama is one of 25 states that have urban fatality rates of 1.0 per 100 million vehicle-miles traveled or higher. The other 24 states are New Mexico, Florida, Arizona, Tennessee, Louisiana, Mississippi, Wyoming, Delaware, Missouri, Alaska, Kentucky, Hawaii, Georgia, Colorado, Oklahoma, Texas, Oregon, Nevada, South Dakota, South Carolina, Pennsylvania, Michigan, Kansas, and Illinois. 

Alabama is one of eight states that improved in the overall rankings by at least 10 spots from the previous report. The other states are Florida, Connecticut, Massachusetts, South Carolina, Maryland, Illinois, and Georgia.

Reason Foundation’s Annual Highway Report measures the condition and cost-effectiveness of state-controlled highways in 13 categories, including pavement condition, traffic congestion, structurally deficient bridges, traffic fatalities, and spending (capital, maintenance, administrative, other) per mile.

*2021 data
The Annual Highway Report is based on spending and performance data submitted by state highway agencies to the federal government and urban congestion data from the Texas A&M Transportation Institute for 2020 as well as bridge condition data from the Better Roads inventory for 2021. For more details on the calculation of each of the 13 performance measures used in the report, as well as the overall performance measure, please refer to the appendix in the main report. The report’s dataset includes Interstate, federal, and state roads, but not county or local roads. All rankings are based on performance measures that are ratios rather than absolute values: the financial measures are disbursements per mile, the fatality rate is fatalities per 100 million vehicle-miles of travel, the urban congestion measure is the annual delay per auto commuter, and the others are percentages. For example, the state ranking 1^st in structurally deficient bridges has the smallest percentage of structurally deficient bridges, not the smallest number of structurally deficient bridges.