New Mexico's Rankings in the
28th Annual Highway Report
New Mexico’s highway system ranks 38th in the nation in overall cost-effectiveness and condition.
According to the Annual Highway Report by Reason Foundation, this is a two-spot fall from New Mexico’s ranking of 36th 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 Mexico’s highways rank 38th in urban Interstate pavement condition, 40th in rural Interstate pavement condition, 39th in urban arterial pavement condition, 34th in rural arterial pavement condition, 16th in structurally deficient bridges, 50th in urban fatality rate, and 42nd in rural fatality rate.
New Mexico ranks 25th out of the 50 states in traffic congestion, and its drivers spend 17 hours a year stuck in traffic congestion.
In spending and cost-effectiveness, New Mexico ranks 10th in capital and bridge disbursements, which are the costs of building new roads and bridges and widening existing ones. New Mexico ranks 3rd in maintenance spending, such as the costs of repaving roads and filling in potholes. New Mexico’s administrative disbursements, including office spending that doesn’t make its way to roads, ranks 44th nationwide.
The categories in which the state improved the most from the previous report were administrative disbursements (48th to 44th), structurally deficient bridges (18th to 16th), and other fatality rate (36th to 34th).
New Mexico worsened the most in rural fatality rate (31st to 42nd).
Compared to neighboring and nearby states, New Mexico’s overall highway performance is better than Oklahoma’s (39th) and Colorado’s (43rd), but worse than Utah’s (8th), Texas’ (25th), and Arizona’s (29th).
Comparing its overall performance to similarly populated states, New Mexico ranks ahead of Nebraska (30th), but behind Mississippi (18th).
New Mexico’s highway system ranks 38th out of 50 states overall this year, ranked 36th in last year’s report, and was 21st in the nation five years ago, in 2019.
“In terms of improving in the road condition and performance categories, New Mexico should focus on reducing administrative disbursements and improving its rural Interstate pavement condition. The state ranks in the bottom 10 in both categories, its worst spending and pavement rankings,” said Baruch Feigenbaum, lead author of the 28th Annual Highway Report and senior managing director of transportation policy at Reason Foundation. “Reducing fatality rates, both rural and urban, should also be a priority for New Mexico as the state ranks in the bottom 10 in both categories as well.”
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.