Colorado ranks 35th in the nation in highway performance and cost-effectiveness in the Annual Highway Report by Reason Foundation.

Colorado ranks 22nd in fatality rate, 15th in deficient bridges, 46th in rural Interstate pavement condition, 27th in urban Interstate pavement condition, and 33rd in urbanized area congestion.

On spending, Colorado ranks 33rd in total disbursements per mile and 31st in administrative disbursements per mile.

Colorado’s best rankings are deficient bridges (15th), fatality rate (22nd), and urban Interstate pavement condition (27th).

Colorado’s worst rankings are rural Interstate pavement condition (46th) and maintenance disbursements per mile (39th).

Colorado’s state-controlled highway mileage makes it the 29th largest system.

Colorado’s Complete Results Ranking
Overall Rank in 2013: 35
Overall Rank in 2012: 33
Overall Rank in 2011: 29
Performance by Category in 2013 Ranking
Total Disbursement per Mile 33
Capital-Bridge Disbursements per Mile 31
Maintenance Disbursements per Mile 39
Administrative Disbursements per Mile 31
Rural Interstate Percent Poor Condition 46
Rural Other Principal Arterial Percent Poor Condition 31
Rural Other Principal Arterial Percent Narrow Lanes 31
Urban Interstate Percent Poor Condition 27
Urbanized Area Congestion, Annual Delay Per Auto Commuter 33
Bridges Percent Deficient 15
Fatality Rate per 100 Million Vehicle-Miles of Travel 22

The Annual Highway Report is based on spending and performance data submitted by state highway agencies to the federal government for 2013. For more details on the calculation of each of the 11 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 1st in deficient bridges has the smallest percentage of deficient bridges, not the smallest number of deficient bridges.

Return to the main Annual Highway Report page for 2016
Download Full Report (PDF)Download State Summaries (PDF)