Idaho Ranks 15th in the Nation in Cost-Effectiveness and Condition

 According to the AnnualHighwayReportby Reason Foundation, this is a 19-spot improvement from Idaho’s ranking of

34th overall in the last evaluation of the condition, safety, and costs of roads and bridges in all 50 states.

In safety and condition categories, Idaho’s highways rank 7th in urban Interstate pavement condition, 23rd in rural Interstate pavement condition, 12th in urban arterial pavement condition, 12th in rural arterial pavement condition, 20th in structurally deficient bridges, 5th in urban fatality rate, and 23rd in rural fatality rate.

Idaho ranks 7th out of the 50 states in traffic congestion, and its drivers spend seven hours a year stuck in traffic congestion.

In spending and cost-effectiveness, Idaho ranks 49th in capital and bridge disbursements, which are the costs of building new roads and bridges and widening existing ones. Idaho ranks 33rd in maintenance spending, such as the costs of repaving roads and filling in potholes. Idaho’s administrative disbursements, including office spending that doesn’t make its way to roads, ranks 17th nationwide.

The categories in which the state improved the most from the previous report were rural arterial pavement condition (46th to 12th) and urban arterial pavement condition (34th to 12th).

Idaho worsened the most in the other disbursements (from 32nd to 40th).

Compared to neighboring and nearby states, Idaho’s overall highway performance is better than Montana’s (18th), Nevada’s (24th), Oregon’s (35th), and Washington’s (47th) but worse than Utah’s (8th).

Comparing its overall performance to similarly populated states, Idaho ranks higher than Nebraska (30th) and West Virginia (33rd).

Idaho’s highway system ranks 15th out of 50 states overall this year, ranked 34th in last year’s report, and was 13th in the nation five years ago, in 2019.

“In terms of improving in the road condition and performance categories, Idaho should focus on reducing capital-bridge disbursements and other disbursements. These two categories are Idaho’s worst rankings overall,” said Baruch Feigenbaum, lead author of the 28thAnnualHighwayReportand senior managing director of transportation policy at Reason Foundation. “Additionally, Idaho should look for ways to lower its rural fatality rate, in which it ranks 23rd, the state’s lowest safety-focused ranking.”

*2021 data
The Annual Highway Report is based on spending and performance data submitted by state highway agencies to the federal government and urban congestion data from the Texas A&M Transportation Institute for 2020 as well as bridge condition data from the Better Roads inventory for 2021. For more details on the calculation of each of the 13 performance measures used in the report, as well as the overall performance measure, please refer to the appendix in the main report. The report’s dataset includes Interstate, federal, and state roads, but not county or local roads. All rankings are based on performance measures that are ratios rather than absolute values: the financial measures are disbursements per mile, the fatality rate is fatalities per 100 million vehicle-miles of travel, the urban congestion measure is the annual delay per auto commuter, and the others are percentages. For example, the state ranking 1^st in structurally deficient bridges has the smallest percentage of structurally deficient bridges, not the smallest number of structurally deficient bridges.