Tennessee ranks 18th in the nation in highway performance and cost-effectiveness in the Annual Highway Report by Reason Foundation.

Tennessee ranks 40th in fatality rate, 10th in deficient bridges, 16th in rural Interstate pavement condition, 19th in urban Interstate pavement condition, and 27th urbanized area congestion.

On spending, Tennessee ranks 22nd in total disbursements per mile and 24th in administrative disbursements per mile.

Tennessee’s best rankings are rural arterial pavement condition (8th), deficient bridges (10th), and rural Interstate pavement condition (16th).

Tennessee’s worst rankings are rural arterial lane-width (41st) and fatality rate (40th).

Tennessee’s state-controlled highway mileage makes it the 17th largest system.

Tennessee’s Complete Results Ranking
Overall Rank in 2013: 18
Overall Rank in 2012: 17
Overall Rank in 2011: 20
Performance by Category in 2013 Ranking
Total Disbursement per Mile 22
Capital-Bridge Disbursements per Mile 32
Maintenance Disbursements per Mile 23
Administrative Disbursements per Mile 24
Rural Interstate Percent Poor Condition 16
Rural Other Principal Arterial Percent Poor Condition 8
Rural Other Principal Arterial Percent Narrow Lanes 41
Urban Interstate Percent Poor Condition 19
Urbanized Area Congestion, Annual Delay Per Auto Commuter 27
Bridges Percent Deficient 10
Fatality Rate per 100 Million Vehicle-Miles of Travel 40

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.

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