North Dakota's Rankings in the
28th Annual Highway Report
North Dakota’s highway system ranks 3rd in the nation in overall cost-effectiveness and condition.
According to the Annual Highway Report by Reason Foundation, this is a six-spot improvement from North Dakota’s ranking of 9th overall in the last evaluation of the condition, safety, and costs of roads and bridges in all 50 states.
In safety and condition categories, North Dakota’s highways rank 3rd in urban Interstate pavement condition, 6th in rural Interstate pavement condition, 25th in urban arterial pavement condition, 20th in rural arterial pavement condition, 42nd in structurally deficient bridges, 6th in urban fatality rate, and 29th in rural fatality rate.
North Dakota ranks 1st out of the 50 states in traffic congestion, and its drivers spend four hours a year stuck in traffic congestion.
In spending and cost-effectiveness, North Dakota ranks 26th in capital and bridge disbursements, which are the costs of building new roads and bridges and widening existing ones. North Dakota ranks 14th in maintenance spending, such as the costs of repaving roads and filling in potholes. North Dakota’s administrative disbursements, including office spending that doesn’t make its way to roads, ranks 15th nationwide.
The categories in which the state improved the most from the previous report were other disbursements (35th to 11th), other fatality rate (23rd to 7th).
North Dakota worsened the most in rural fatality rate (19th to 29th).
Compared to neighboring and nearby states, North Dakota’s overall highway performance is better than Minnesota’s (7th), Montana’s (16th), and Nebraska’s (30th).
Comparing its overall performance to similarly populated states, North Dakota ranks ahead of South Dakota (27th) and Alaska (50th).
North Dakota’s highway system ranks 3rd out of 50 states overall this year, ranked 9th in last year’s report, and was 1st in the nation five years ago, in 2019.
“In terms of improving in the road condition and performance categories, North Dakota should focus on reducing capital-bridge disbursements. The state ranks in the bottom half of all states in this category, its worst non-safety ranking,” 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 North Dakota, as the state ranks in the bottom 10 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.