Florida's Rankings in the
28th Annual Highway Report
Florida’s highway system ranks 14th in the nation in overall cost-effectiveness and condition.
According to the Annual Highway Report by Reason Foundation, this is a six-spot fall from Florida’s ranking of 8th overall in the last evaluation of the condition, safety, and costs of roads and bridges in all 50 states.
In safety and condition categories, Florida’s highways rank 9th in urban Interstate pavement condition, 4th in rural Interstate pavement condition, 5th in urban arterial pavement condition, 5th in rural arterial pavement condition, 10th in structurally deficient bridges, 48th in urban fatality rate, and 38th in rural fatality rate.
Florida ranks 39th out of the 50 states in traffic congestion, and its drivers spend 45 hours a year stuck in traffic congestion.
In spending and cost-effectiveness, Florida ranks 40th in capital and bridge disbursements, which are the costs of building new roads and bridges and widening existing ones. Florida ranks 25th in maintenance spending, such as the costs of repaving roads and filling in potholes. Florida’s administrative disbursements, including office spending that doesn’t make its way to roads, ranks 23rd nationwide.
The categories in which the state improved the most were rural fatality rate (45th to 38th) and administrative disbursements (28th to 23rd).
Florida worsened the most in urbanized area congestion (18th to 39th).
Compared to neighboring and nearby states, Florida’s overall highway performance is better than Alabama’s (17th) and Mississippi’s (18th) but worse than South Carolina’s (2nd) and Georgia’s (6th).
Comparing its overall performance to similarly populated states, Florida ranks ahead of Texas (25th) and New York (45th).
Florida’s highway system ranks 14th out of 50 states overall this year, ranked 8th in last year’s report, and was 40th in the nation five years ago, in 2019.
“In terms of improving in the road condition and performance categories, Florida should focus on reducing capital-bridge disbursements and reducing traffic congestion. These are the only performance categories in which the state ranks in the bottom 25 states,” said Baruch Feigenbaum, lead author of the 28th Annual Highway Report and senior managing director of transportation policy at Reason Foundation. “The state should also look to lower its urban fatality rate. Florida’s rank of 48th in urban fatality rate makes it one of the worst in the nation for this safety metric.”
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.