Virginia's Rankings in the
28th Annual Highway Report
Virginia’s highway system ranks 4th in the nation in overall cost-effectiveness and condition.
According to the Annual Highway Report by Reason Foundation, this is a three-spot fall from Virginia’s ranking of 1st overall in the last evaluation of the condition, safety, and costs of roads and bridges in all 50 states.
In safety and condition categories, Virginia’s highways rank 26th in urban Interstate pavement condition, 11th in rural Interstate pavement condition, 17th in urban arterial pavement condition, 8th in rural arterial pavement condition, 9th in structurally deficient bridges, 23rd in urban fatality rate, and 35th in rural fatality rate.
Virginia ranks 37th out of the 50 states in traffic congestion, and its drivers spend 39 hours a year stuck in traffic congestion.
In spending and cost-effectiveness, Virginia ranks 1st in capital and bridge disbursements, which are the costs of building new roads and bridges and widening existing ones. Virginia ranks 29th in maintenance spending, such as the costs of repaving roads and filling in potholes. Virginia’s administrative disbursements, including office spending that doesn’t make its way to roads, ranks 12th nationwide.
The categories in which the state improved the most from the previous report were other fatality rate (29th to 16th) and administrative disbursements (19th to 12th)
Virginia worsened the most in urbanized area congestion (24th to 37th).
Compared to neighboring and nearby states, Virginia’s overall highway performance is better than Tennessee’s (5th), Kentucky’s (11th), Maryland’s (32nd), and West Virginia’s (33rd), but worse than North Carolina’s (1st).
Comparing its overall performance to similarly populated states, Virginia ranks better than both New Jersey (34th) and Washington (47th).
Virginia’s highway system ranks 4th out of 50 states overall this year, ranked 1st in last year’s report, and was 2nd in the nation five years ago, in 2019.
“In terms of improving in the road condition and performance categories, Virginia should focus on reducing maintenance disbursements and urbanized area congestion. Traffic congestion is a growing problem in Northern Virginia, Richmond, Hampton Roads and along I-81. The state is not addressing the problem quickly enough,” said Baruch Feigenbaum, lead author of the 28th Annual Highway Report and senior managing director of transportation policy at Reason Foundation. “Reducing the rural fatality rate in the state should also be a priority, as Virginia ranks 35th this year.”
Reason Foundation’s 28th Annual Highway Report measures the condition and cost-effectiveness of state-controlled highways in 13 categories, including pavement and bridge conditions, traffic fatalities, and spending. In the performance categories, ranking first implies the state has the best or lowest fatality rate and its road pavement is in the best condition. A ranking of 50th in performance categories means the state has the worst fatality rates or pavement conditions. In simplified terms, in the cost-effectiveness categories, a rank of 50 means the state spends more money, and a first-place ranking means the state spends less money than other states in that category.
The report’s data are primarily information each state directly reported to the Federal Highway Administration for 2022. Better Roads and Bridges provides the deficient bridge data, and the Texas A&M Transportation Institute provides the traffic congestion data.
Please see the complete 28th Annual Highway Report for detailed methodology and a comprehensive list of data sources.