New Jersey's Rankings in the
28th Annual Highway Report
New Jersey’s highway system ranks 34th in the nation in overall cost-effectiveness and condition.
According to the Annual Highway Report by Reason Foundation, this is a 10-spot improvement from New Jersey’s ranking of 44th 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 Jersey’s highways rank 43rd in urban Interstate pavement condition, 12th in rural Interstate pavement condition, 41st in urban arterial pavement condition, 29th in rural arterial pavement condition, 30th in structurally deficient bridges, 16th in urban fatality rate, and 5th in rural fatality rate.
New Jersey ranks 50th out of the 50 states in traffic congestion, and its drivers spend 104 hours a year stuck in traffic congestion.
In spending and cost-effectiveness, New Jersey ranks 39th in capital and bridge disbursements, which are the costs of building new roads and bridges and widening existing ones. New Jersey ranks 16th in maintenance spending, such as the costs of repaving roads and filling in potholes. New Jersey’s administrative disbursements, including office spending that doesn’t make its way to roads, ranks 10th nationwide.
The categories in which the state improved the most from the previous report were maintenance disbursements (from 42nd to 16th) and administrative disbursements (from 35th to 10th).
New Jersey worsened the most in other fatality rate (from 3rd to 8th).
Compared to neighboring and nearby states, New Jersey’s overall highway performance is better than Pennsylvania’s (37th), Delaware’s (41st), and New York’s (45th) but worse than Connecticut’s (13th), and Maryland’s (32nd).
Comparing its overall performance to similarly populated states, New Jersey ranks behind Virginia (4th) and Michigan (23rd).
New Jersey’s highway system ranks 34th out of 50 states overall this year, ranked 44th in last year’s report, and was 50th in the nation five years ago, in 2019.
“In terms of improving in the road condition and performance categories, New Jersey should focus on reducing traffic congestion and improving urban Interstate pavement and urban arterial pavement condition. The state ranks in the bottom 10 in all three categories and is worst in the country in traffic congestion,” said Baruch Feigenbaum, lead author of the 28th Annual Highway Report and senior managing director of transportation policy at Reason Foundation. “Reducing the number of structurally deficient bridges should also be a priority for New Jersey, as the state performs poorly in this category.”
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.