New Hampshire's Rankings in the
28th Annual Highway Report
New Hampshire’s highway system ranks 19th in the nation in overall cost-effectiveness and condition.
According to the Annual Highway Report by Reason Foundation, this is a five-spot worsening from New Hampshire’s ranking of 14th overall in the last evaluation of the condition, safety, and costs of roads and bridges in all 50 states.
In safety and condition categories, New Hampshire’s highways rank 1st in urban Interstate pavement condition, 2nd in rural Interstate pavement condition, 8th in urban arterial pavement condition, 19th in rural arterial pavement condition, 34th in structurally deficient bridges, 3rd in urban fatality rate, and 19th in rural fatality rate.
New Hampshire ranks 33rd out of the 50 states in traffic congestion, and its drivers spend 33 hours a year stuck in traffic congestion.
In spending and cost-effectiveness, New Hampshire ranks 9th in capital and bridge disbursements, which are the costs of building new roads and bridges and widening existing ones. New Hampshire ranks 28th in maintenance spending, such as the costs of repaving roads and filling in potholes. New Hampshire’s administrative disbursements, including office spending that doesn’t make its way to roads, ranks 46th nationwide.
The categories in which the state improved the most from the previous report were capital- bridge disbursements (from 19th to 9th) and urban arterial pavement condition (from 13th to 8th).
New Hampshire worsened the most in the rural fatality rate (from 3rd to 19th).
Compared to neighboring and nearby states, New Hampshire’s overall highway performance is better than Maine’s (21st), Massachusetts’ (40th), and Vermont’s (44th) but worse than Connecticut’s (13th).
Comparing its overall performance to similarly populated states, New Hampshire ranks ahead of West Virginia (33rd) but behind Montana (16th).
New Hampshire’s highway system ranks 19th out of 50 states overall this year, ranked 14th in last year’s report, and was 24th in the nation five years ago, in 2019.
“In terms of improving in the road condition and performance categories, New Hampshire should focus on reducing administrative disbursements and other disbursements. The state ranks in the bottom 10 in both categories, its worst rankings by far,” said Baruch Feigenbaum, lead author of the 28th Annual Highway Report and senior managing director of transportation policy at Reason Foundation. “Reducing the percentage of structurally deficient bridges should also be a priority for New Hampshire, as the state ranks in the bottom 20 in bridges.”
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.