27th Annual Highway Report: Rural Other Principal Arterial Pavement Condition

Rural other principal arterials (ROPA) are two to four-lane highways connecting different cities or regions. The condition of major rural arterials improved slightly from 2019 to 2020, by about 0.02 percentage points. Overall, about 1.13% of the ROPA system—1,016 miles out of 89,778—was reported to be in poor condition (Table 13, Percent Rural Other Principal Arterial Mileage in Poor Condition, 2019, Figure 8). This compares with about 1.15% (1,027 of 89,287 miles) in 2019, the last time this assessment was completed. (It should be noted that as cities grow, the urbanized area around them grows as well. As this occurs, highways near cities are often reclassified from rural to urban. If these highways were in good condition already, their reclassification has the effect of increasing the percentage of rural roads in poor condition.)

Between 2019 and 2020, the percentage of ROPA decreased in 29 states, increased in 19 states, and generally remained the same in two states. The percent of poor mileage changed less than one percentage point in 42 of the states. Rhode Island and New Jersey led the states in reducing poor condition (by 7.09 and 3.99 points respectively) while Idaho led the states in increasing poor condition mileage (by 2.86 points).

The condition of ROPA miles varies widely by state. In 2020, all states reported at least some poor ROPA mileage. Twenty-four states reported 1% or less of their ROPA mileage was in poor condition. On the other hand, one state (Alaska) reported more than 10% of its ROPA mileage was in poor condition. Alaska has only 0.53% of the U.S. ROPA mileage, but 6.5% of the U.S. mileage that is in poor condition.

Rural Other Principal Arterial Pavement Condition — Percent in Poor Condition