Policy Study

Indiana Ranks 32nd in the Nation in Highway Performance and Cost-Effectiveness

Indiana’s best rankings are in urban arterial pavement condition, administrative disbursements per mile, and overall fatality rate.

Indiana’s highway system ranks 32nd in the nation in overall cost-effectiveness and condition, according to the Annual Highway Report by Reason Foundation. This is a one-spot improvement from the previous report, where Indiana ranked 33rd overall.

In safety and performance categories, Indiana ranks 19th in overall fatality rate, 21st in structurally deficient bridges, 32nd in traffic congestion, 43rd in urban Interstate pavement condition, and 45th in rural Interstate pavement condition.

On spending, Indiana ranks 27th in total spending per mile and 24th in capital and bridge costs per mile.

“To improve in the rankings, Indiana needs to improve its Interstate pavement condition. Indiana is in the bottom 10 states for both urban and rural Interstate pavement conditions. Compared to neighboring states, the report finds Indiana’s overall highway performance is worse than Kentucky (ranks 4th) and Ohio (ranks 13th), but better than Illinois (ranks 37th),” said Baruch Feigenbaum, lead author of the Annual Highway Report and senior managing director of transportation policy at Reason Foundation. “Indiana is doing worse than comparable states like Minnesota (ranks 15th) and Ohio (ranks 13th).”

Indiana’s best rankings are in urbanized arterial pavement condition (7th) and administrative disbursements per mile (18th).

Indiana’s worst rankings are in rural Interstate pavement condition (45th), urban Interstate pavement condition (43rd), and maintenance disbursements per mile (43rd).

Indiana’s state-controlled highway mileage makes it the 25th largest highway system in the country.

Reason Foundation’s Annual Highway Report measures the condition and cost-effectiveness of state-controlled highways in 13 categories, including pavement condition, traffic congestion, structurally deficient bridges, traffic fatalities, and spending (capital, maintenance, administrative, overall) per mile.

The Annual Highway Report is based on spending and performance data submitted by state highway agencies to the federal government for 2018 as well as urban congestion data from INRIX and bridge condition data from the Better Roads inventory for 2019.