Kentucky ranks 14th in the nation in highway performance and cost-effectiveness in the Annual Highway Report by Reason Foundation.

Kentucky ranks 38th in fatality rate, 43rd in deficient bridges, 15th in rural Interstate pavement condition, 13th in urban Interstate pavement condition, and 23rd in urbanized area congestion.

On spending, Kentucky ranks 10th in total disbursements per mile and 1st in administrative disbursements per mile.

Kentucky’s best rankings are administrative disbursements per mile (1st), total disbursements per mile (10th), and capital-bridge disbursements per mile (11th).

Kentucky’s worst rankings are deficient bridges (43rd) and rural arterial lane-width (40th).

Kentucky’s state-controlled highway mileage makes it the 8th largest system.

Kentucky’s Complete Results Ranking
Overall Rank in 2013: 14
Overall Rank in 2012: 10
Overall Rank in 2011: 26
Performance by Category in 2013 Ranking
Total Disbursement per Mile 10
Capital-Bridge Disbursements per Mile 11
Maintenance Disbursements per Mile 13
Administrative Disbursements per Mile 1
Rural Interstate Percent Poor Condition 15
Rural Other Principal Arterial Percent Poor Condition 14
Rural Other Principal Arterial Percent Narrow Lanes 40
Urban Interstate Percent Poor Condition 13
Urbanized Area Congestion, Annual Delay Per Auto Commuter 23
Bridges Percent Deficient 43
Fatality Rate per 100 Million Vehicle-Miles of Travel 38

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)